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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



PROGRESS 

AFTER ENTIRE 
SANCTIFICATION 

By Rev. Arthur C. Zepp 



"One perfected in love may grow in grace far swifter than he did before.'' 

— John Wesley 

"If theologians generally propound, as sound doctrine, the idea of growth 
in depravity, when depravity is entire, it would be difficult to show its un- 
soundness in holiness. 

Prof. T. C. Upham 



1909 

THE CHRISTIAN WITNESS COMPANY 

Chicago and Boston 




Copyright 19 09 

By 

The Christian Witness Co. 



H93 



tf 



DEDICATION 



To the many professors of 
Sanctifying Grace who have 
not become " established," 
" strengthened," "settled" 
therein, and to all who have 
experienced Perfect Love, this 
book is prayerfully dedicated, 
hoping that it may prove an 
inspiration to such to abound 
" more and more " in that 
wondrous love of God of 
which they have become 
partakers. 



PREFACE 

There are many excellent books on the subject of 
"Christian Holiness ;" but most of these treat of the na- 
ture of sanctification, its distinction from and subse- 
quency to, regeneration, and the conditions of obedience, 
consecration, prayer, and faith necessary to its obtain- 
ment. Holiness is also abundantly defended by them 
and proven to be the "Central Idea" of the Bible; all 
churches are shown to teach the subject; the doctrine is 
also proven historically and experimentally. 

The casual observer, however, must readily admit, 
amid the voluminous writings on holiness, few books 
have been distinctively written on "Progress After En- 
tire Sanctification." The preachers of holiness, too, with 
a few exceptions, confine their efforts to leading the re- 
generate on to "Full Salvation" — possibly they say so 
much on this phase of the subject, because others, who, 
according to their instructions to "do all in their power 
to build up their members in that holiness without which 
they cannot see the Lord," say so little. But the fact re- 
mains, brethren, that much of our work is lost because 
of a lack of definite teaching, preaching, and literature, 
on "Progress After Sanctification." How many of our 
hearts have been saddened by seeing, after a year or two 



of absence from a victorious battlefield, "Ichabod," "The 
glory is departed," written on the features of some of 
the brightest professors of sanctifying grace ! Some new 
light came subsequent to sanctification and refusal to 
walk in it brought darkness ! 

The "Holiness Movement" for the past forty years 
has dealt ably with the "how into" sanctification, but the 
"how after" has not received so much attention. At the 
present time a crisis is on us and there is great need of 
rational teaching on advancement in holiness. Not ad- 
vancing brings stagnation ; on the other hand, not know- 
ing wherein rational advancement consists, brings fanati- 
cism which is far worse. 

Many have ably written on "Progress after Sanctifi- 
cation" but their writings are scattered incidentally 
through books which treat on how to obtain the blessing 
— in fact most of these books only devote a small chap- 
ter to going on, which is equally, if not more important, 
than obtaining the blessing. The writer has long had 
the conviction that the choicest thoughts of the most 
prominent teachers, together with original matter, put in 
special book form, treating alone on "Progress After 
Perfect Love," would be useful as a means of growth in 
holiness, as well as valuable as a reference book. He 
believes this book unique in its exclusive treatment of 
advancement after entire sanctification. The author aims 
to be simple, plain, practical and helpful in his presenta- 
tion of the subject, more than scholarly. The subject is 
treated largely from an experimental standpoint. 

vi 



INTRODUCTION 



Entire sanctification is an act of destruction. Charac- 
ter building is a work of construction. After the dis- 
ease of sin is removed, the development of spiritual 
life is to proceed. This development calls for well di- 
rected energy within the soul, and well directed ministry 
from without. The product of these two, under the 
guidance and grace of the Spirit is Growth in Holiness. 

While the hope of growing into holiness is warrantless 
and worthless, the duty of growing in holiness is im- 
perative and constant. This calls for all diligence and 
for all skill in the culture of the soul. 

It is gratifying to note that in the development of the 
modern Holiness movement due place is being found for 
the spiritual culture of the truly sanctified. And particu- 
larly so as not only the veterans, but also the younger 
men in the work, are devoting attention to this important 
phase of the subject. At our camp-meetings, conventions 
and Pentecostal convocations, some messages and serv- 
ices are devoted exclusively or mainly to the feeding of 
sheep as others are to the caring for lambs. So, too, in 
our papers, much is written to edify as well as to sanctify. 
Otherwise our work would not be attuned to the New 
Testament which gives so large a place to growth in 
vii 



grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus 
Christ. 

But we are as yet only in the beginnings of this minis- 
try of Spiritual Culture. The next few years must ad- 
vance us towards a science and a system as well as to 
skill in the art of Holy Hygiene. 

Brother Zepp's book modestly comes forth as a Primer 
in this School of the Saints. There is place and need for 
just such a book. This one has been prompted by per- 
fect love, and prepared with much care and much prayer. 
It should be studied as well as read. It will surely help 
the soul and the cause of Holiness as well. 

Joseph H. Smith. 



Vlll 



CONTENTS 



1 Chapter Page 

I. Advancement After Entire Sanctifica- 

TION 9 

The Principal Progress in the Divine Life 
Comes After Entire Sanctification. 

Disease and Deformity Obstruct Physical 
Growth — Sin Principle Retards Spiritual 
Progress. 

Greater to "Retain" Sanctification and 
Progress Therein Than to "Gain" It. 

Sanctification not Finality. 

Maturity the Goal. 

Degrees in the Development of the Sanc- 
tified. 

A Source of Discouragement. 

A Caution. 

John Wesley's Advice to the Wholly Sanc- 
tified. 

II. Progress in Quality Not in Quantity. ... 21 

III. Forgetting and Pressing 20, 

Abound "More and More." 



IV. Much Land Ahead to be Possessed 39 

Refutation of "Third Blessingism." 

V. New Manifestations 47 

VI. Refreshings 53 

VII. Increasing in the Knowledge of God 59 

VIII. Perpetuation of Entire Consecration .... 65 

IX. Perpetuation of Consecration and the 

Will ji> 

X. Perpetuation of Consecration, Obedience 

and Faith 79 

Disobedience Hinders Power in Service. 

XL Obstacles to Progress 91 

XII. Spiritual Failure 95 

XIII. Practical Suggestions 101 

Teachableness. 

Willingness to Admit Faults. 

Confession. 

Moulting and Shedding. 



CHAPTER I. 

ADVANCEMENT AFTER ENTIRE SANCTIFICATION 

"Advance in the love and knowledge of our Lord Jesus." 
2nd Peter 3-18. 20th Cent. Test. 

"From one point of view the development of Charac- 
ter is never complete because experience is constantly 
presenting new aspects of life to us ; and in consequence 
of this fact, we are always engaged in slight reconstruc- 
tions of our modes of conduct, and our attitudes toward 
life." — AngelVs Psychology. 

The Principal Progress in the Divine Life Comes 
After Entire Sanctification 

"The advocates of holiness have been accused of dis- 
belief on growth in grace. One would listen in vain for 
statements to fall from the lips of any of the accredited 
teachers of entire sanctification to substantiate this charge. 
On the contrary we aver our belief in growth in grace, 
both before entire sanctification, after, especially after, 
and throughout the endless cycles of eternity. The com- 
mand, 'Grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord 

9 



10 Progress After Entire Sanctification 

Jesus Christ,' applies to the entirely sanctified as to no 
other class. 'It was originally given to those who were 
steadfast, which regenerated souls are not/ Sanctifica- 
tion endows with a spiritual life which has the highest 
capabilities of development. To suppose sanctification is 
all, brings stagnation. The principal progress in the 
Divine life comes after heart cleansing. 'Holiness is not 
the end; it is a good beginning. There is no end to it. 
Paul says, "Ye have your fruit unto holiness and the end 
everlasting life/ " 

The absurdity of that supposition, "If the heart is pure 
there is no use to endeavor to advance," is seen from the 
following : 

Disease and Deformity Obstruct Physical Growth — Sin 
Principle Retards Spiritual Progress 

"If evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, 
shall it be thought a thing incredible that the purified shall 
grow from strength to strength, from grace to grace, and 
from glory to glory? If wealth and health enable a man 
to accumulate property easier and more rapidly than a 
state of poverty or sickness, will not purity, which is the 
soul's wealth and health, prepare it to grow with increas- 
ing vigor, beauty and symmetry ? Vegetables in a garden 
cleansed from weeds and grass will grow more thriftily 
than otherwise, nor will they cease to grow when every 
noxious thing is exterminated; a tree, pruned, and all 



Progress After Entire Sanctification II 

worms and insects cleansed from it, will not cease to 
grow, but will grow all the faster; a healthy child will 
grow in strength and stature more rapidly than a sickly 
one. All disease or deformity obstructs growth, while 
health is its most essential condition. Thus when the 
carnal mind is destroyed, the soul will grow with increas- 
ing thriftiness and uniformity. Sin degenerates, crip- 
ples and enervates; while holiness quickens and invigor- 
ates, and secures the best possible foundation for the 
development of all our powers and faculties." 

— /. A. Wood. 

In lieu of the foregoing, how erroneous, fallacious, 
and misleading to suppose a state of heart purity de- 
rogatory to development! Rather it is indispensably 
necessary to satisfactory growth. 

Greater to "Retain" Sanctification and Progress 
Therein Than to "Gain" It 

Mr. Wesley's mature judgment was that it is a greater 
thing to "retain" than to "gain" sanctification; and his 
observation was, that hardly one in thirty retained the 
grace of holiness. To retain this grace requires prog- 
ress — like riding a bicycle, we must go on or fall off. 
The housewife will testify the work of cleaning house 
is a small thing compared to keeping it clean. So like- 
wise, being cleansed from all sin, in entire sanctification, 



12 Progress After Entire Sanctification 

is a small part of the holy life ; the greatest part, "Keeping 
ourselves unspotted from the world," is before us. 

Sanctification not Finality 

Because a garden with young growing vegetables is 
cleansed of all poisonous and hurtful weeds which would 
retard the progress of their growth, is no evidence what- 
ever the vegetables are mature ; so, also, a heart cleansed 
is not a mature heart. Sanctification is not "finality," 
but, "beginning" — commencement. Looking on sanctifi- 
cation as the summit of attainment accounts for the many 
disappointed and unvictorious professors of sanctifying 
grace. 

The Goal for the Sanctified Does not Consist in an 
Increase of Purity: 

"Beyond sanctification there is no increase in purity, 
but increasing increase in expansion." — Dr. Dempster. 

"Purity is to be distinguished from maturity. When 
inbred sin is destroyed there can be no increase of purity, 
but an eternal increase in love and all the fruits of the 
Spirit." — Amos Binney. 

Maturity the Goal 

"We understand simple purity, as not a high state of 
grace when compared with the privileges of the divine 
life. Purity is only the base, the substratum of a grand 
Christian life. 



Progress After Entire Sanctification 13 

Maturity, by which we. understand an ever increas- 
ing increase of love and all the fruits of the Spirit, is 
not a condition of salvation. Purity is. Maturity is 
gradual and indefinite — a gradual and progressive pro- 
cess involving years of growth, cultivation and enlarge- 
ment. Were maturity a condition of salvation many 
sanctified but immature Christians would be lost; thou- 
sands die in immaturity and are saved." — /. A. Wood. 

The sanctified progress towards maturity and are 
blameless before God at every stage ; their progress will 
not cease with this life ; they shall, throughout the count- 
less cycles of eternity, ever be advancing towards and 
approximating God's infinite perfection. 

Degrees in the Development of the Sanctified 

The Bible reveals stages in the development of the 
Christian life; and this surely applies to the sanctified. 
John writes of some who were "little children," others, 
who were "young men;" and still another class whom 
he calls "fathers" in Christ. Paul notes the same dis- 
tinctions in his epistles. To the Corinthians he wrote 
as unto, "babes in Christ ;" in another place of "children" 
— "That we should be no more children." And yet again, 
that we should attain unto a "full-grown man" in Christ. 
There are similar degrees noticed in the development of 
the entirely sanctified. We have seen the wabbling, vacil- 
lating, babe in sanctification ; the stalwart, young man, 



14 Progress After Entire Sanctification 

and also the established father and mother in holiness. 
God does not fault the babe in the sanctified life for not 
being as mature as the young man or father. The babe 
in the sanctified life is just as pure as the young man 
or father, but simply not as mature; because maturity 
does not come instantaneously like cleansing ; maturity is 
the result of years of growth, experience and development. 

A Source of Discouragement 

Dr. S. A. Keen suggests the not observing distinc- 
tions similar to those just enumerated in the development 
of the sanctified life is the cause of much discouragement 
to zealous young professors of sanctifying grace. They 
have looked on the development and matureness of such 
characters as Fletcher, when his spiritual life had reached 
its zenith, and have thought they might obtain in a mo- 
ment, that which, with him, was reached, by virtue of long 
years of obedience, growth, discipline and development. 

"The maturing of a Christian experience cannot be 
reached in a moment, but is the result of the work of 
God's Holy Spirit, who, by His energizing, and trans- 
forming power, causes us to grow up into Christ in all 
things — and we cannot hope to reach this maturity in any 
other way, than by yielding ourselves up utterly and will- 
ingly to His mighty working." — H. W. Smith. 



Progress After Entire Sanctification 15 

A Caution 

We mistake to look for perfection proximating fault- 
lessness, infallibility, or absolute perfection. A zealous, 
consecrated, and intelligent worker whom the writer had 
been instrumental in leading into the sanctified life di- 
vulged in a conversation on "Progressive Holiness" that 
her ambition was to be so perfect (absolutely) that she 
would never make a mistake. (As might be expected, 
pursuing such an irrational ideal she drifted into fanati- 
cism.) Such perfection is nowhere promised in the word 
of God to mortals during probation. The holiest of men 
have erred and will err until the end of time. Errors, 
however, may be reduced to the minimum by care and 
watchfulness. God uses errors to prod us and remind 
us we are still in the flesh ; and whilst we do not believe 
the worldly Christian's (?) favorite maxim, — "A little sin 
is necessary to keep the soul humble," yet we can con- 
ceive how an occasional error and unwitting mistake may 
serve to humble the sanctified and incite to greater watch- 
fulness. 

What are we to Expect after the Crisis of Entire Sanc- 
tification ? 

The greatest danger to the sanctified lies in not appre- 
hending wherein true, rational, progress consists. Ig- 
norance here results in fanaticism. 

We are manifestly not to seek another crisis of experi- 
ence which will preclude the necessity of constantly seek- 



16 Progress After Entire Sanctification 

ing new and deeper degrees of love for God and man. 
Neither are we to expect such an experience as will lift 
us above temptation and Satanic conflict; nor trials and 
sorrows, contingent on our earthly pilgrimage. 

Mr. Wesley has pointed out the very desire of advance- 
ment may become a snare to the wholly sanctified: 

John Wesley's Advice to the Wholly Sanctified 

"The very desire of growing in grace may sometimes 
be an inlet to enthusiasm. As it continually leads us to 
seek new grace, it may lead us to seek something else 
new, besides new degrees of love for God and man. So 
it has led some to seek, and fancy they had received, 
gifts of a new kind after a new heart, as (i) The lov- 
ing God with all our mind. (2) With all our soul. (3) 
With all our strength. (4) Oneness with God. (5) 
Oneness with Christ. (6) Having our life hid with 
Christ in God. (7) Being dead with Christ. (8) Rising 
with Him. (9) The sitting with Him in heavenly places. 
(10) Being taken up into His throne. (11) The being 
in the New Jerusalem. (12) The seeing the tabernacle 
of God come down among men. (13) The being dead 
to all works. (14) The not being liable to death, pain, 
or grief or temptation. 

One ground of these and a thousand mistakes is the 
taking every fresh, strong application of any of these 
Scriptures to the heart, to be a gift of a new kind; not 



Progress After Entire Sanctification ij 

knowing that several of these Scriptures are not ful- 
filled yet; that most of the others are fulfilled when we 
are justified; the rest, the moment we are sanctified. It 
remains only to experience them in higher degrees. This 
is all we have to expect. 

Another ground of these mistakes is the not consider- 
ing deeply that LOVE IS THE HIGHEST GIFT OF 
GOD, — humble, gentle, patient love; that all visions, 
revelations, manifestations whatever, are little things com- 
pared to love. It were well you should be thoroughly sen- 
sible of this — the heaven of heavens is love. There is 
nothing higher in religion; there is, in effect, nothing 
else ; if you look for anything but more love you are 
looking wide of the mark, you are getting out of the royal 
way. And when you are asking others have you received 
this or that blessing, if you mean anything but more love, 
you mean wrong; you are leading them out of the way 
and putting them on a false scent. Settle it, then, in your 
heart, that from the moment God has saved you from all 
sin, ("Sanctified you wholly") you are to aim at nothing 
but more of that love described in the thirteenth of First 
Corinthians. You can go no higher than this until you 
are carried into Abraham's bosom. 

The cry of the sanctified should be; 



1 8 Progress After Entire Sanctification 

"O grant that nothing in my soul may dwell, 
But Thy pure love alone; 

O may Thy love possess me whole, 
My joy, my treasure, and my crown; 

Strange flames far from my heart remove 

My every act, thought, word be love." 

Clamoring for the supernatural gifts of the Spirit 
above His graces, has shipwrecked many a hitherto use- 
ful sanctified life. The writer knows of holiness people, 
caught by the power-heresy wave which has recently 
swept over certain organizations, who have spent months 
seeking the gift of tongues, under the false impression 
that all might have that gift; others there are who are 
seeking power to walk on waves, or through closed doors 
and walls as Jesus did. Paul, after writing of the nine 
supernatural gifts of the Spirit, which God bestows, sov- 
ereignly, on whom He wills, closes the chapter by saying 
(free translation of Greek), "Yet show I unto you a way 
beyond all comparison the best." Then follows that 
matchless thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians, describ- 
ing the way of God's kind of love — the more excellent 
way. Oh, that holiness professors would spend their 
time seeking deeper degrees of that love which abides 
forever! To be swallowed up in love, to be "stripped 
of all but love," and have "our hearts aflame with love, 
"hot with love," is the crying need of the hour. 



Progress After Entire Sanctification 19 

"Had I the gift of tongues 
Great God, without Thy grace, 

My loudest words, my loftiest songs 
Would be but sounding brass. 

Had I such faith in God 
As mountains to remove, 

No faith could effectual prove 
That did not work by love. 

Grant then this one request 
Whatever be denied, 

That love divine may rule my breast 
And all my actions guide." 



CHAPTER II. 
PROGRESS IN QUALITY NOT IN QUANTITY 

"Whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have 
more abundance." 

"If one is holy, how can he be more holy? If per- 
fectly holy, how can he increase in holiness? 

A thing may be perfect in nature, yet not in degree. 
An oak when it first rises above the ground, is so small 
that it may be trodden under foot ; yet as truly an oak as 
when it stands in the strength of years. A child is in 
nature as much a human being in infancy as in manhood. 
It is so with any intellectual power or appetite or affec- 
tion. A reasoner understands reasoning, and may be able 
to apply the principles perfectly in a given case; yet, by 
habit, he may increase the promptness, facility and per- 
fection of the mental faculty. An intemperate man may 
become perfectly temperate; yet one entirely reformed 
is less likely to be overcome when the temperate principle 
has acquired strength. 

The most perfect thing, if susceptible of growth, win 
have the most sure and rapid growth. Which grows best 

21 



22 Progress After Entire Sanctification 

— the perfect flower, or that which has canker or is de- 
fective in some part, the perfect child or the one afflicted 
or malformed? Such facts show that the state called 
holiness, assurance of faith, perfect love, and sanctifica- 
tion may increase. There is no physical impossibility in 
it, but perfection in nature is requisite to perfection in 
degree. One partially holy may grow in holiness, but one 
entirely holy, although assailed by unfavorable influences 
outwardly, will grow more. Obstacles to growth in holi- 
ness will be much less in the latter than in the former, 
and that inward vitality necessary to the greatest expan- 
sion will possess a power unknown under other circum- 
stances. 

These views commend themselves to common observa- 
tion, human reason, and accord with Scripture. John 
the Baptist was filled with the Holy Ghost from his birth ; 
he was sanctified from that early period. But in after 
life, in his temptations and labors, in his faithful preach- 
ing, in his stern rebuke of wickedness, in high and low 
places, in his imprisonment, and in the general growth 
of his matured and consecrated powers there can be no 
difficulty in ascribing to him growth in holiness. It is 
said of him, "The child grew and waxed strong in spirit." 
The Savior was holy from the beginning. Every power 
of body or mind was fully sanctified. But "the child 
grew and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom, and 
the grace of God was upon Him." Jesus increased in 



Progress After Entire Sanctification 23 

wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man," 
What is the meaning of this increase of strength in 
spirit? How could He increase in the favor of His 
heavenly Father, if, with the increase of His expanding 
powers, there was not also a corresponding growth in 
holy love? The Scriptures do not recognize standing 
still ; all passages which require growth in grace and re- 
ligious knowledge are as applicable after sanctification as 
before. "Let as many as be perfect, be thus minded," in 
that we press toward the mark for the prize of the high 
calling of God in Christ Jesus." "Be perfect, as your 
Father in heaven is perfect," implies that we be perfect 
in our sphere, in our perceptions, feelings and purposes, 
to the full extent of our capability, and also that we 
should continually expand (in accordance with the law 
of increase which is part of the nature of every rational 
being) our capacity of feeling and of knowledge. In 
doing this we fulfill the command absolutely, so far as the 
nature of our mental exercises is concerned; and fulfill 
it by approximation, or continual growth, so far as re- 
lates to their degree. The angels in heaven are holy, 
but are always growing in holiness. In their exercises 
they are like their heavenly Father, and perfect as He 
is perfect ; but in relation to the degree of their exercises, 
they can be said to be perfect only in availing themselves 
of every possible means of approximation and growth. 
Growth, therefore — continual advancement — is the un- 



24 Progress After Entire Sanctification 

alterable law of all created holy beings. "Whoever hath, 
to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance." 
Hence growth in holiness, when the heart is sanctified, 
is reasonable. The growth of a sanctified soul in holi- 
ness would be more rapid than that of the partially sanc- 
tified. The testimony of those who have arrived at this 
state is, that their growth is more rapid and sure. They 
are conscious of increased power against temptation, and 
of increased union with the Divine will, to an extent un- 
known in previous experience. What growth, then, must 
there be in angel minds, which are neither obstructed 
by inward nor by outward evils in their progress ! What 
expansion ! What increased intensity of desire ! What 
higher and more triumphant energies of love." 

• — Thomas C. Upham, D. D. 

"So many look upon holiness as a finality and make no 
proper effort to advance in the grace and consequently 
it parts with its sweetness and power. Holiness is a 
Progressive Principle and cannot live in an atmosphere 
of stagnation. Whosoever, therefore, would enjoy and 
retain holiness after it has been obtained must 'forget 
those things which are behind and reach forth to those 
things which are before, and press toward the mark; he 
must continue with open face to behold the glory of the 
Lord/ and thereby change into the same image from 
glory to glory even as by the Spirit of the Lord." 

— Sheridan Baker. 



Progress After Entire Sanctification 25 

Manifestly the crying need of the holiness movement 
is the developing of a ministry which will lead the fully 
sanctified on and on into the deeper degrees in the Divine 
life to "all the fulness of God." 

Joseph H. Smith, in his pamphlet on "Holiness Work," 
said, "We have the great task of developing sainthood 
and the maturing of a wholesome saintliness in those who 
are truly sanctified. None are more susceptible to the 
advancing ministries of a progressive piety than those 
who are made free from sin. And none are in any more 
need of being ministered unto than those who (rid of 
the appetite for worldly things) cannot thrive without 
the strong meat of God's word. Yet there are few who 
know how to 'feed sheep/ For these cannot fatten, mark 
you ! either upon the barbwire of cautions which is fre- 
quently rolled out to them from many ministries, nor, yet, 
from the mere rehearsal of the truths whereby they were 
sanctified. How few there are of us who are skilled in 
the art of culturing their graces, developing their gifts, 
perfecting their conduct, and maturing their influence 
and their service ! 

"True, they are in the school of providence, and are 
the subjects of fostering and chastening grace. True, 
too, they as none others, are capacitated to work out 
their own salvation. But it is also true that the gospel 
contemplates a nursing mother and an admonishing 
father — ministry for all saints to the very end of proba- 



26 Progress After Entire Sanctification 

tion. And we are called to be such. For lack here, many 
may be developed farther as holiness people than as holy 
people." 

"Peter may be denominated the great apostle of growth. 
To him all the advocates of a growth into holiness appeal 
in the advocacy of their theory. But they fail to cor- 
rectly interpret this apostle. In the orders which he gives 
the churches to gradually advance in religious life he 
assumes that purity is an antecedent necessity. In his 
second epistle, Chap. I, verses 5 and 6, he says: 'And 
besides this, giving all diligence, add to your faith, virtue, 
and to virtue, knowledge, and to knowledge, temperance, 
and to temperance, patience,' and so on. This has been 
interpreted to mean a gradual advance in the religious 
life until a state of perfected purity be reached. But a 
little care will discover that the apostle is urging a 
spiritual development which succeeds to, or follows after, 
entire purification. 'Besides this,' he says, 'giving all 
diligence, add to your faith, virtue, and to virtue, knowl- 
edge,' etc. Now let it be inquired, besides what? The 
answer comes in the preceding verse : 'Whereby are 
given unto us exceeding great and precious promises : 
that by these ye might be partakers of the Divine nature, 
having escaped the corruption that is in the world through 
lust.' Hence, 'besides this' means besides having the 
Divine nature, and besides being freed from the carnal 
nature, 'add to your faith virtue,' and so on — that is, 
develop and mature the state of purity." 



Progress After Entire Sanctification 27 

"In the famous order of this apostle by which he closes 
his second epistle, 'But grow in grace, and the knowledge 
of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ/ he assumes that 
the persons addressed were 'steadfast/ or already in a 
favorable condition for vigorous growth, as appears from 
the preceding verse. Before he gave this order he gave 
another, which he viewed as an antecedent in the order 
of grace: 'Be diligent that ye may be found of Him 
in peace, without spot and blameless/ Peace, spotless- 
ness and blamelessness first, then Christian growth and 
development." — D. S. Baker. 

"How can holiness be perfect and yet progressive?" 
J. A. Wood in "Perfect Love" answers this question: 
"Perfection in quality does not exclude increase in 

quantity. Beyond entire sanctification there is no increase 

in purity, as that which is pure cannot be more than pure ; 

but there may be unlimited increase in expansion and 

quantity. 

"After love is made perfect, it may abound yet more and 
more. Holiness in the entirely sanctified is exclusive, and 
is perfect in kind or in quality, but is limited in degree or 
quantity. The capacities of the soul are expansive and 
progressive, and holiness in measure can increase corre- 
sponding to increasing capacity. Faith, love, humility, 
and patience, may be perfect in kind, and yet increase in 
volume and power, or in measure harmonizing with in- 
creasing capacity. A tree may be perfectly sound, 



28 Progress After Entire Sanctification 

healthy, and vigorous in its branches, leaves and fruit, 
and yet year by year increase perpetually its capacity and 
fruitfulness. Analogous to this is a wicked life. The 
church has always held the doctrine of total depravity, 
and yet believed in acquired depravity, and in aggressive 
depravity. 

"Why can a soul entirely sanctified grow in grace more 
rapidly than others? 

"Holiness does not put a finality to anything within us, 
except to the existence and practice of sin ; and the soul, 
perfect in love, can grow faster than others. " 



CHAPTER III. 

FORGETTING AND PRESSING 

"Forgetting those things which are behind and reaching 
forth to those things which are before." Paul. 

"There is a marked distinction between a perfect heart 
and a perfect character. The former is acquired in a 
moment but the latter is a process. Many confound the 
act of sanctification with the process of character build- 
ing, and great confusion has resulted therefrom; it is 
one thing to have the heart all yielded to God and oc- 
cupied by Him; it is another thing to have the entire 
character, in every detail, harmonize with His Spirit and 
the life becomes conformable to His image. Many holi- 
ness people fail to recognize that this being conformed 
is a process rather than an act, and become discouraged 
because they are not more Christlike. Numerous have 
been the disappointments of earnest and devout souls in 
expecting to obtain, in the act of sanctification, things 
that belong to the developing and maturing of character. 
The failure to properly guard this point has been a weak- 
ness in much of the modern holiness work." 

— /. O. McClurkan. 
29 



30 Progress After Entire S an ctifi cation 

The same writer said, "Are there not some of us who 
have been trying a good while to get back an old expe- 
rience? If we succeeded we should be only where we 
were, and if we are only going to get where we were we 
have abandoned the law of progress and begun the down- 
ward retrogression. God has Himself withered, by His 
own consuming breath, your former joys, that He may 
lead you into something better." 

Sanctification being, "not the perfect knowledge of 
God, but the perfect qualification for relatively knowing 
Him," when we look at the perfection of development, 
and at that of glorification, we can say with Paul, "Not 
as though I had already attained;" the development of 
the sanctified must consequently consist in "forgetting 
those things which are behind and reaching forth unto 
the things which are before." 

Rev. Sheridan Baker tells us in his introduction to Hid- 
den Manna, that soon after he entered the sanctified life he 
began to turn his attention away from what had been 
"done for him" to what "he saw before him." He per- 
ceived that a state of purity and the general fulness of 
the Spirit were small matters compared with "all the 
fulness of God," and "living in the realm of the 'exceeding 
abundantly above all that we ask or think.' ' Since then, 
he adds, "I have been a seeker, continuously, not for 
pardon, or purity, or the grace already received, but for 
more and more of the Christ nature. Forgetting those 



Progress After Entire Sanctification 31 

things which are behind and reaching forth to those 
things which are before, I press toward the mark for the 
prize." 

Rev. John Fletcher said, "With me it is a small thing 
(comparatively), to be cleansed from all sin. I want to 
be filled with all the fulness of God." 

Abound "More and More" 

The Pauline epistles breathe prayers which show the 
Apostles was solicitous for the continued advancement 
of his spiritual children. Let us examine a representative 
quotation from his Philippian letter. "And this I pray, 
that your love may abound yet more and more" (1 19). 
The Greek word here signifies "Divine Love" or "God's 
kind of love," in contrast with human or natural love. 
In other words : "May God's kind of love, which is in 
you, abound more and more ;" or "superabundantly above 
the greatest abundance." "More and more" is an em- 
phatic assertion which forever cuts off the possibility of 
any one getting to an altitude in grace and saying, "Come 
here, I have reached the highest possible attainment, be- 
yond this summit you cannot go." God intends we shall 
be justified and then abound "more and more" until we 
are sanctified wholly ; and then abound "more and more" 
until we are glorified ; and then abound "more and more" 
while the countless cycles of eternity roll. How gratify- 



32 Progress After Entire Sanctification 

ing ! something always beyond. Something ahead a little 
better and bigger and grander to inspire our zeal. 

Emerson in his essay on "circles" quotes Augustine's 
description of the nature of God as "a circle whose center 
is everywhere and its circumference nowhere." So, like- 
wise, in the realm of spiritual development, the boundary 
line which marks the circumference of the holy soul's 
development in spiritual advancement and God-likeness 
has not been drawn by God. 

Ours is a progressive race; every one seeks to excell. 
It would seem every achievement, in the material realm, 
admits of being outdone — we no sooner learn of the 
launching of the Lusitania, the world's largest and fastest 
ocean liner, than intelligence comes another company 
have plans perfected for a little larger and faster vessel ; 
or no sooner has England her "Dreadnaught" until Uncle 
Sam is building a battleship of larger class. Herein the 
children of the world are wiser than the children of light. 
Would God that holiness people realized they might go 
on and excell in expansion of their Divine life — that, 
whatever the attainments of Wesley, or Fletcher, or Mme. 
Guyon, in saintliness, as Emerson says, "Around every 
circle another may be drawn — there is no end ; every end 
is only a beginning — under every deep, a lower deep 
opens." 

"God is both," the same writer says, "the inspirer and 
condemner of every success — i.e. He inspires us on until 



Progress After Entire Sanctification 33 

we reach a coveted experience ; then He withers the joy 
of that so we will stir ourselves to seek greater manifesta- 
tions of His love. 

We sing, and rightly, too, on entering Canaan, as with 
retrospective view we look back over the road travelled : 

"I can see far down the mountain 
Where I wandered weary years." 

So too, we might sing, using the words in another 
sense, after entering Canaan, and advancing in the land, 
we can look far down the mountain where we "crossed 
over Jordan." For (as a writer says) in the material 
realm new arts destroy the old, e.g., aqueducts must give 
place to hydraulics, fortifications to gunpowder, roads 
and canals to railways, sails to steam, etc., so too, in the 
spiritual realm, old experiences and attainments are swal- 
lowed up by new discoveries ; not that we forget the be- 
ginnings and appreciate them less, but as the scientific 
world goes on making improvements and discovering 
new usefulness in inventions, and does not hang around 
their beginnings, so too, in grace, as we discover the new 
beauties in Canaan and abound "more and more" in God's 
kind of love, and explore the wondrous "heights and 
depths and lengths" leading to all the fulness of God, 
there is little time to go back to the points of entrance. 
The heart refuses to be imprisoned. It always tends 
"outward and onward to immense and immeasurable 
expansions." 



34 Progress After Entire Sanctification 

Ex-President Roosevelt used words, in his address of 
welcome to our fleet at Hampton Roads, after its famous 
round the world tour, which apply pertinently to the pro- 
gressive Christian: 

"Incidentally, I suppose I need hardly say that one 
measure of your fitness must be your clear recognition of 
the need always steadily to strive to render yourselves 
more fit ; if you ever grow to think that you are fit enough 
you can make up your minds that from that moment 
you will begin to go backward." In our application we 
do not mean to imply one needs other fitness for heaven 
than entire sanctification but simply this : there must be 
an every growing desire to have our characters har- 
monize with Christ in their minutiae. 

"Sanctification is possession of the goodly land of 
Canaan* — an entrance into it — with the work of ex- 
ploration set before us." We must walk through the land 
and explore its heights and depths and breadths and 
lengths : 

"Too many are satisfied to enter and camp near the 
crossing. Holiness is not Land's End. It is not con- 
summation. It is a good beginning. It is an entrance to 
the land, not all of the land. To think of it as the goal 
means stagnation and is one of the fruitful sources of the 



♦NOTE. — Entire sanctification is meant here; also in 
other places where the word holiness occurs. 



Progress After Entire Sanctification 35 

sour, disagreeable types of holiness which sometimes ap- 
pear."— S. A. Keen, D. D. 

Dr. Adam Clarke said, "To be filled with God is a 
great thing; to be filled with the fulness of God is still 
greater ; but to be filled with all the fulness of God utterly 
bewilders the sense and confounds the understanding." 
Yet this marvelous privilege is held up by Paul as the 
goal for those believers who have already been "sealed 
with that Holy Spirit of promise," (Eph. 1 113.) in his 
prayer "that ye may be filled with all the fulness of God." 
Dr. Godbey commenting here quotes Fletcher as saying, 
" 'filled with all the fulness of God' describes a state 
of grace beyond entire sanctification. We enter the 
sanctified experience from the negative hemisphere, real- 
izing the utter elimination of the sin principle through 
the cleansing blood. Having passed the sin side of the 
experience, we enter the glorious hemisphere of incom- 
ing and superabounding grace which is illimitable in this 
life, and, superseded by the glory of heaven, sweeps on 
in geometrical ratio through all eternity, ever and anon 
flooding the soul with fruitions, amplifications, beatifica- 
tions and rhapsodies, eclipsing the most ecstatic hyper- 
boles, while ages and cycles wheel their precipitate flight." 

Think of the Jamestown and Plymouth settlers and 
their descendants staying on the Eastern Coast and not 
pushing West to the rich prairie farm lands ! What a 
drawback to civilization ! Thank God for the aggressive 



36 Progress After Entire Sanctification 

spirit of our forefathers! They believed in expansion. 
So likewise in entire sanctification we have only touched 
the border of a mighty continent stretching out before 
us inviting us to explore its boundless dimensions. Be- 
fore us is the "much land ahead to be possessed," and 
the command to "walk up and down in it ;" and to survey 
its height and depth and breadth and length and to make 
every foot of land the soles of our feet touch ours. After 
perfect love, the "untrammeled experience" comes the 
abounding "more and more" and the going from "grace 
to grace ;" strength to strength ; faith to faith ; victory to 
victory ; triumph to triumph ; conquering to conquer ; ad- 
vancement to advancement ; achievement to achievement ; 
attainment to attainment; from summit to summmit; 
from mountain peak to higher mountain peak, and from 
"glory to glory." Hallelujah! The privilege of living 
in the realm of the "exceeding abundantly above all that 
we ask or think" is ours, contingent of "forgetting" the 
things which are behind and "pressing" forward to the 
things which are before, suffering the loss of all things, 
and counting them but dross for the excellency of the 
knowledge of Christ Jesus our Lord, and being ambitious 
to be "filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual 
understanding" and to be filled with all the fulness of 
God. 

J. A. Wood, answering the question : "Does Christian 
Perfection exclude growth in grace?" said, 

"By no means. The pure in heart grow faster than 



Progress After Entire Sanctification 37 

any others. We believe in no state of grace excluding 
progression, either in this world or in heaven, but expect 
to grow with increasing rapidity forever. It is the same 
with the soul wholly sanctified as with the merely regen- 
erate; it must progress in order to retain the favor of 
God and the grace possessed. Here many of both classes 
have fallen. There is no standing still in a religious life, 
nor in a sinful life. We must either progress or regress. 
If living according to our light and duty, we are grow- 
ing, no matter what our gracious state may be, or how- 
ever largely we may have partaken of the Holy Spirit, — 
if neglecting present duty, we are backsliding, whatever 
our attainments may have been." 

"A disastrous error is indulged by Christians when 
they content themselves with the grace received when 
they pass from death to life. Such contentment is surely 
succeeded by the loss of conscious pardon, and leaves 
no comfort except from what arises from the sweet 
memories of the happy hour of conversion. The same 
mistake is committed by entirely sanctified persons who 
covet past experiences and labor to bring them back, in- 
stead of following on to know the Lord and making 
effort to advance in holiness. This contentment to live 
around the points of pardon or purification, and to covet 
the sweetness of those hours has dwarfed many a believer 
and deprived him of the more elevated and sublime ex- 
periences which were in reserve for him in a progres- 
sive religious life." — Sheridan Baker. 



CHAPTER IV. 
MUCH LAND AHEAD TO BE POSSESSED 

"Thou broadenest out with every year 

Each breadth of life to meet, 
I scarce can think thou art the same, 

Thou art so much more sweet. 

With gentle swiftness lead me on, 

Dear God! to see Thy face; 
And meanwhile in my narrow heart 

Oh, make thyself more space." Faber. 

"There remaineth yet very much land to be possessed.' 
Joshua 13:1. 

'The inspired teachers place special emphasis on the 
necessity of continuous advancement in spirituality. 
Paul said, "I count not myself to have apprehended; but 
this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are 
behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are 
before, I press toward the mark for the prize." These 
words fully compass the progressive nature of Scriptural 
holiness. The things the apostle would forget were not 
alternate backslidings and reclamations, alternate suc- 

39 



40 Progress After Entire Sanctification 

cesses and failures, religious ups and downs, nor waver- 
ings and vacillations which dwarfed his spiritual life, 
and embittered the memories of the past. On the con- 
trary, the things which he would forget were the vic- 
tories, the triumphs and glorious realization of a long 
and fruitful Christian life. The words directing our 
thoughts were penned some twenty-nine years after 
Ananias laid his hands upon the apostle and he was filled 
with the Holy Ghost ; some eighteen years after the time 
when he was caught up into the third heaven, and heard 
unutterable things, and after the remaining years had 
been filled with faithful Christian living, and corres- 
spondingly rich experiences. Hence it was not a life of 
mortifying failures and unfaithfulness which the apostle 
was trying to forget, but one of sweet memories and rich 
experiences that he would leave for something better and 
further on. 

"He said again, at the very time when he declared he 
was forgetting those things which were behind, "Yea 2 
doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excel- 
lency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord; for 
whom I have suffered the loss of all things and do count 
them but refuse that I may win Christ." To willingly 
suffer the loss of all things, and to account all attainable 
honors of earth, refuse, in contrast with the enjoyment 
of Christ is a depth of religious experience which at first 
thought would be supposed enough to satisfy any mortal. 



Progress After Entire Sanctification 41 

But this height and depth of grace the apostle would for- 
get in his effort to mount to loftier altitudes in the life 
of God. What withering rebukes these facts administer 
to those Christians who are satisfied to continually move 
around the luminous points of their conversion and en- 
tire sanctification. 

"As to those things which were before the apostle, to 
which he reached forth and pressed, it is only necessary 
to say that, whatever else they embraced, they were 
deeper acquaintance with the Divine things, richer ex- 
periences in the great salvation, and more Christliness in 
nature." — Dr. S. Baker. 

The quotation from Joshua, around which the thought 
of this chapter revolves, reveals specifically, (1) that en- 
trance into Canaan and possession of the land do not 
annul the necessity of further advancement and con- 
quest. God said to Joshua when flushed with the victory 
of conquering thirty-one kings, "There remaineth yet, 
very much land to be possessed;" (2) that Canaan is not 
a place of inactivity against external foes though it is a 
place of rest from inward conflict. The Israelites did 
their chief fighting after gaining possession of the 
"goodly land." As Dr. C. J. Fowler has suggested, 
Sanctification (entire) constitutes a man a soldier so 
that God can put him in the arena to unsheathe his sword 
from its scabbard and do battle victoriously for Him. 
And as we have no record that Jesus was personally as- 



42 Progress After Entire Sanctification 

sailed by the devil until after His baptism, on the banks 
of the Jordan, so too, may the professor of the Spirit's 
baptism expect Satanic conflict after that crisis. (3) 
That the zenith of spiritual advancement is not reached 
by virtue of old age without effort to advance. Every 
inch of advancement was contested by a malignant foe. 
None should indulge the conceit because long on the way 
they are exempt from further effort to advance : "Now 
Joshua was old and stricken in years ; and the Lord said 
unto him, 'Thou art old and stricken in years (yet you 
do not know it all), and there remaineth yet very much 
land to be possessed.' " Those who feel themselves par- 
agon saints, and exempt from the necessity of further 
advancement, would do well to meditate on this language 
of inspiration. 

"The need of advancement argues no present defile- 
ment ; and the fact of mighty and marked progress over 
what we were, or what we did, yesterday, is no evidence 
that that was sinful or that it was unacceptable to the 
Lord. The glory of yesterday represented our full 
measure of capacity then. And the greater capacity of 
today points to a greater glory which is now within our 
reach. There are countless and ever succeeding degrees 
of progression. Our epochal experiences in conversion, 
in sanctification or in special induements with power 
for service do neither exhaust the riches of glory nor 
militate against continuous progress in the spiritual life. 



Progress After Entire Sanctification 43 

We say these epochal experiences, these sharply defined 
transformations from "glory to glory" establish the pre- 
cedent and illustrate the law of spiritual advancement or 
of growth in grace. For, instead of growth being that 
insensible, undefined, or often undiscoverable thing which 
it is supposed to be, it is a steady, distinct, and definite 
ascent from faith to faith, from grace to grace and from 
glory to glory. And these steps of advance are often 
made by a revelation so vivid, a faith so conscious, and a 
result so marked, that some have been misled into attach- 
ing to these subsequent developments a prominence equal 
to that of their sanctification." — Joseph H. Smith. 

Refutation of "Third Blessingism" 

Indeed, some have mistaken the most clear of these 
"vivid revelations" and marked manifestations, which all 
truly sanctified have in the progress of their development, 
for a new work of grace and hence has arisen the third 
blessing theory, which, when embraced proves the sand- 
bar on which many hopeful, sanctified lives have been 
wrecked. The advocates of this position have tried hard 
to wrest Scriptures to substantiate their erroneous views. 
"He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and fire" is a 
favorite passage, which, according to Dr. Adam Clarke, 
simply means, "The fiery baptism with the Holy Ghost" 
— fire being a symbol of the Spirit. When a man is 
baptized with the Holy Ghost, he has fire, Hallelujah! 



44 Progress After Entire Sanctification 

Jessie Penn Lewis has pointed out, "There is only one 
preposition here in the Greek, showing the identity of the 
Holy Ghost and fire." 

Dr. S. A. Keen's writings have been misquoted to en- 
dorse this erroneous theory, which, in substance is, that 
regeneration and sanctification are works of grace, and 
that the gift of the Holy Ghost marks another epoch in 
the believer's experience, and is not received simultan- 
eously with sanctification, as the God-honored National 
Association for the promotion of Holiness, in all the 
churches, teaches. Dr. Keen wrote, before his transla- 
tion, a spiritual autobiography (Praise Papers), in which 
he records some blessed lessons on "Progress After En- 
tire Sanctification" — but it cannot be proven from this 
volume that he reached what he called a third crisis. The 
substance of his teaching on the subject is that the bap- 
tism of the Holy Ghost and entire sanctification are es- 
sentially one — synonymous, and that after this crisis come 
the "varied and successive refreshings, supplies, enlarge- 
ments and anointings," which are given the sanctified in 
special emergencies. In Praise Papers, page 63, he 
writes: "These new, enlarged realizations of the Com- 
forter, came to me, not by a crisis, as at the dawn, when, 
by a perfect consecration and a special faith, I received 
the Comforter, but, by a sweet illumination, that, if I 
would ask for a refreshing of the Holy Ghost to meet 
new emergencies in my experience and work, it would be 



Progress After Entire Sanctification 45 

given. So, without any struggle, except with temptations 
from Satan to doubt, but simply claiming the promise, 
"How much more shall your heavenly Father give the 
Holy Ghost to them that ask Him," there came the man- 
ifestation of the Spirit, which opened a glorious sunrise 
epoch. In its light I saw that for ten years I had been 
in the land but camped near the crossing, and that all the 
land was yet before me. So enrapturing was the vision 
— "Sweet fields of living green, and rivers of delight;" 
the heights and depths, the lengths and breadths ; "the 
love abounding and all the fulness of God" — that I broke 
camp and have been on the tramp ever since. And each 
day I see some new stretch of the Christ-life and Christ- 
nature, some new range of blessedness and peace, and 
away I go for it by simple faith and prayer. When 
will it end? I guess (rightly) it will not end. Oh, this 
wonderful lesson of progressive holiness !" 



CHAPTER V. 
NEW MANIFESTATIONS 

"I will manifest myself to Him." John 14:21. 

We have been accustomed to limit this promised man- 
ifestation to the Pentecostal gift of the Holy Ghost. It 
has direct reference to that. But is this the only mani- 
festation that the believer may have? Surely it implies, 
"As thy day so shall thy strength be," — renewed 
strength; "They that wait on the Lord shall renew or 
exchange their strength/' New, fresh manifestations all 
along the way which "shineth brighter and brighter unto 
the perfect day." Dr. Keen said after "ten years in the 
land, camping near the crossing, there came a manifesta- 
tion of the Spirit which opened a glorious sunrise epoch. " 

Dr. Wm. McDonald said : 

"A manifestation of the Spirit last year will no more 
support a soul this year than air breathed yesterday will 
nourish the flame of life today. The sun which warmed 
us last week must shine again this week — a notion of 
old warmth is a very cold notion. We must have fresh 
food daily; and though we need not a new Christ, we 
need perpetually new displays of His love and power. 

47 



48 Progress After Entire Sanctification 

A present fulness can no more satisfy the soul for all 
coming time than filling our stomachs once with food 
forever prevents hunger. Suppose a man, after eating 
a hearty meal, concludes, because he feels no present 
want he shall never hunger more. How long would that 
impression last? Before twenty-four hours had passed 
nature would teach him another lesson. The same is true 
of this completeness ; it by no means excludes all growth 
in grace." So, too, it may be said of past manifestations 
of Christ to the heart, they by no means preclude the 
necessity of future manifestations. 

After the crisis of entire sanctification is passed, the 
soul finds itself confronted by special emergencies, trials, 
testings, temptations, severe Satanic onslaughts, and op- 
portunities for service. It is our privilege at such times 
to seek and obtain, as suggested by Dr. Keen, by simple 
faith in Jesus' promise, "How much more shall your 
heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask 
him" (a promise which is not exhausted by regenerating 
and sanctifying grace), a new anointing or manifestation 
of the Spirit to the heart which shall specially strengthen 
to meet such emergencies. Thus the disciples were led, 
after they had received the sanctifying baptism with the 
Holy Ghost, at a time of persecution, to seek by prayer, 
a new manifestation of God's favor and help. They 
sought not in vain — "The place was shaken and they 
were all filled with the Holy Ghost," and in the strength 



Progress After Entire Sanctification 49 

of that new fresh manifestation preached God's message 
fearlessly. 

Alfred Cookman said: "I can understand, how sub- 
sequent to our sanctification in response to our faith in 
Jesus, the Holy Spirit may come in an extraordinary de- 
gree, and we be filled with the Spirit." 

Speaking of his experience at Pennsgrove Camp- 
meeting, after the Holy Ghost had been given as his 
sanctifier, he said : "I found myself drawn out for more 
of God. I could scarcely define my feelings, but there 
was a going out after (more of) God. When surrounded 
one day with a few Christians, struggling up to enjoy 
God as never before, this suggestion came: 'You have 
been trying to get up, are you willing to sink down?' 
'Yes,' I answered, 'and away ;' if I may find him thus, let 
me sink in the depths.' Then I began to feel I was going 
down, and with this there came a realization of love, as 
I had never known before, and it filled my body, soul 
and entire being. Oh, how I loved his children and His 
Word ! I asked, 'What does this mean ?' 'God is love/ " 

This experience from one so eminent in the ranks oi 
holiness proves sanctification is not the end of attain- 
ment, but just the condition of realizing fuller and more 
glorious manifestations of God's love and power; and 
that, not only once, but continuously through life as times 
of need arise. In our eagerness to avoid extremism and 
fanaticism we have become too little interested in sane 



50 Progress After Entire Sanctification 

and rational advancement. We have been fearful of de- 
siring more love after "Perfect Love" lest we should be 
classed among the lukewarm and backslidden. If to 
hunger for more love after perfect love is an evidence 
of a backslidden state then inspiration is in error in 
commanding those believers who were steadfast to ad- 
vance in love (2 Pet. 3:18. 20th Cent. Test). Thank 
God, to hunger ever so much for more love after the 
crisis of entire sanctification is no evidence of spiritual 
decline, but rather of a healthy condition of soul. 

"The old earth receives a fresh baptism of life daily. 
Every night the life giving dew is distilled. The mois- 
ture rises during the day from the ocean, and lake, and 
river, undergoes chemical changes in God's laboratory 
and returns nightly to refresh the earth. It brings to all 
nature new life with rare beauty and fills the air with 
the exquisite fragrance drawn from flowers and plants. 
Its power to purify and revitalize is peculiar and re- 
markable. It distills only in the night when the world is 
at rest. It can come only on clear, calm nights. Both 
cloud and wind prevent and disturb its working. It 
comes quietly and works noiselessly. But the changes 
effected are radical and immeasurable. Literally it gives 
to the earth a nightly baptism of new life. And that, too, 
let me say to you, is His plan for our day by day life." 

— S. D. Gordon. 

The (sanctifying) baptism with the Holy Ghost need 



Progress After Entire Sanctification 51 

only be received once in life (unless the receiver back- 
slides), but the overflowing fulness may be received 
whenever needed. In Acts 1 : 5 we read, "Ye shall be 
baptized with the Holy Ghost," while in Acts 4:31 we 
read, they were filled with the Holy Ghost. "We may 
have a refilling every day." This overflow of the Spirit 
through us is conditioned on specific prayer in special 
emergencies. Paul wrote in his Philippian letter (1 119) 
of a trial turning out to his salvation through prayer and 
the "Supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ!' What supply 
of the Spirit? Manifestly not conviction, regeneration 
or sanctification. Paul knew the Spirit in these opera- 
tions. The teaching here emphatically is that none can get 
such a supply of the Spirit as to annul the necessity of 
further supplies, but that as the special needs arise, in 
answer to special prayer, there are special supplies of the 
Spirit. Glory to God for this gracious provision ! 

"In the realm of Spiritual life there are unnumbered 
and indescribable degrees of advancement to be made in 
knowledge, in courage, in prayer, in persuasiveness, in 
meekness, in patience and in the every-day and every- 
way reflection about us of the life that is within us. In 
holiness there are establishments, intensifications, both 
of the earnestness of our consecration and the ardor of 
our love, and increased wisdom, too, in our testimony 
and in our ways and means of spreading the truth, and 
an ever-growing force in impressing holiness upon others, 



52 Progress After Entire Sanctification 

together with a constant replenishing of our own being 
with fresh supplies of the Spirit of Christ" 

— Joseph Smith. 

The writer, while visiting a brother in the "Breech 
Mechanism" department of our Government Navy Yard 
at the National Capital, observed a mechanic operating 
a compressed air drill. Just above the drill was a tank 
full of lubricating oil; this was conveyed to the drill by 
means of a small pipe, so arranged that as the drill 
wended its way through the hard steel breech of one of 
Uncle Sam's thirteen-inch guns, drip, drip, drip, the oil 
fell upon it, making its progress as far as possible, easy, 
through that hard substance. We thought of our march 
through life, so analogous in its hard places to the drills 
going through the hard steel ; and of the tank of lubricat- 
ing oil so faintly typical of God's inexhaustible ocean of 
grace, the soul's lubricant ; and of the apostle's language : 
"The love of God is shed abroad, in our hearts, by the 
Holy Ghost," or "poured out" (R. V. Margin), glory to 
God ! the oil of His grace so arranged that as we confront 
the hard places, drip, drip, drip, the anointing, refreshing 
oil, induced by prayer and faith, is "poured out" on our 
hearts, strengthening them for the hardest conflict. 
Dearly beloved professor, how long since you had a con- 
scious manifestation from your Lord? God help you to 
see your privilege and to know you need not live on old 
manifestations. 



CHAPTER VI. 

REFRESHINGS* 

"Now I beseech you brethren, for the Lord Jesus Christ's 
sake, and for the love of the Spirit, that ye strive together 
with me in your prayers to God for me; that I may come unto 
you with joy by the will of God, and may with you be re- 
freshed." Paul. Romans 15:29-32. 

*"Deeply experienced Christians all feel the need of 
these gracious visits and effusions of the Spirit to main- 
tain satisfactory religious experiences, and to preserve 
the maximum of usefulness in the church. In his ad- 
vanced years, though he had been rilled with the Spirit 
ever since Ananias had laid his hands upon him, that 
he might receive his sight and be rilled with the Spirit, 
Paul urged the churches to pray for him that he might 
be 'refreshed' and receive such new manifestations of God 
as occasions might require. A striking and highly in- 
structive instance of this occurs in his letter to the 
Romans : 'I am sure that, when I come to you, I shall 
come in the fulness of the blessing of the Gospel of 
Christ .... and may with you be refreshed.' " 



*Taken from Chap. 11 of New Name by S. Baker, D. D. 

53 



54 Progress After Entire Sanctification 

These words contain some great practical truths which 
ought not to be carelessly passed over by any Christian, 
and are so pertinent to the theme in hand that some of 
them will now be named. 

(i) The most spiritually minded need refreshings. — 
If Paul, at that period of his life in which he wrote 
the letter to the Romans, needed refreshings, and needed 
them so much as to justify him in urging a great church 
to "strive together in prayers" for this end, surely all 
other Christians, however advanced in spirituality, need 
the same. Believers may be filled with the Spirit, as a 
settled religious state or habit of the soul, and yet need 
these gracious refreshings more or less frequently, and 
some more frequently than others. This is according to 
the analogy of nature, and is as rational as it is Scriptural. 
Persons free from physical disease of every kind, and 
filled with natural vigor, nevertheless must frequently 
take physical nourishment. Two and three times every 
day healthy persons must supply the waste of their vital 
forces by food, or they become exhausted and unable for 
service. The soundness and health of a laborer are in- 
dicated by the readiness and avidity with which he re- 
ceives regular meals. Should he be indifferent about 
them, and especially should he loathe them, he is unfit 
for work, and needs medical attention. 

So believers may be spiritually healthy and filled with 
spiritual vigor, and yet need these spiritual refreshings ; 



Progress After Entire Sanctification 55 

and their religious soundness will be indicated by the 
keenness of their appetite for soul nourishment. But 
should Christians be indifferent about spiritual food, and 
especially should they feel a sense of qualmishness at an 
invitation to come to the altar of prayer, or at doing 
anything proper to be done to receive soul food or 
spiritual strengthening, they should be alarmed at their 
condition. They need special and prompt attention be- 
fore spiritual life shall become entirely extinct. Soul 
sickness has set in, and unless the gracious remedies be 
speedily taken, will end in certain death. What a spec- 
tacle of sick and dying and dead people the Church of 
today presents to the Eye that can take it all in ! 

(2) A sense of spiritual need is no evidence of spiritual 
poverty. — Had Paul's craving for refreshings been to 
him an evidence of leanness, he could not have said, "I 
am sure that, when I come unto you, I shall come in the 
fulness of the blessing of the gospel." This language is 
a declaration that he then had this blessing of fulness, 
and, what is very much more than a declaration of pres- 
ent possession, he declares that he was sure he would 
continue to have it in the future when he should visit 
Rome; yet with all that, he would then need a joint re- 
freshing with his brethren of that church. In his entreaty 
to these brethren, the apostle assumes that they would 
need the same refreshing, and inferentially tells them this ; 
yet he did not reflect in the least upon their religious 



56 Progress After Entire Sanctification 

state, nor had he any idea that they would receive his 
statement as any reflection upon their spiritual condition 
then, or when he should visit them. Nor should it be 
taken as an insult by the members of any church when the 
pastor invites them to some exercise for the purpose of 
stirring up their gifts and graces. Many look upon such 
invitations as expressions of doubt in their piety, and as- 
sumptions of lukewarmness, backslidings, and spiritual 
deadness. But such requests of the pastor rather assume 
the religious wholeness of the membership, and their wish 
for quickening because of existing spiritual life and 
relishes. 

To kindly invite a neighbor to sit down at our table and 
take a meal with us, is the very opposite of assuming that 
he is sick and has no relish for food ; it is assuming that 
he is well and in good condition, and may need the nour- 
ishment kindly offered. So to invite to an altar of prayer 
assumes nothing that should offend believers, but, on 
the contrary, assumes what ought to please and stimulate 
them to promptly accept the invitation. 

(3) Striving together in prayer is the condition of ob- 
taining these refreshings. — Apathetic and formal prayers 
will avail nothing. The apostle urges the brethren to 
"strive" in prayer ; and not only so, but "strive together" 
in prayer, so that by their most earnest and unified in- 
tercessions they might reach the maximum of their power 
in prayer, and secure the needed effusions of the Spirit 



Progress After Entire Sanctification *fl 

both upon him and them, "that I may with you be re- 
freshed." . . . Paul's private prayers prevailed with 
God, yet he would not risk his refreshings and other 
personal blessings to his own prayers, but frequently 
entreats the churches to "strive together with him in 
prayers to God for him." It was not, therefore, merely 
ceremonial, or saying prayers, that he wanted, but real, 
heartfelt, earnest, fervent praying in the Holy Ghost 
that he sought. 

(4) The most advanced spiritual life may receive new 
revelations and new raptures. — It is a great mistake to 
suppose that in advanced religious life there are no new 
and fresh experiences to be sought and enjoyed; yet 
thousands in middle life and in advanced years, both in 
the pulpit and in the pew, show an outer life fixed in re- 
ligious habits, but the inner moral state cold and fossil- 
ized, without any freshness and heavenly sweetness. 
They seem to suppose that raptures and ecstasies belong 
to early Christian experience, and that none but new con- 
verts may expect such realizations, while they may ex- 
pect nothing but a dead level experience, without any 
sudden uplifts or new raptures. 

Paul had many marked epochs in his religion after he 
received the fulness of the Holy Ghost, and that, too, 
while retaining that fulness. And whoever will make 
and preserve a Pauline consecration, and lead a Pauline 
life, will have these marked crises and uplifts through the 



58 Progress After Entire Sanctification 

entire probationary stay in the Church. Indeed, no one 
can retain the freshness and power of holiness without 
frequent Divine visitations, secured by fastings, wrest- 
lings, and waitings under the light, and drawings of the 
Holy Spirit. Here is the secret of so much weakness 
and inefficiency among Christians, even among the en- 
tirely sanctified: — so few refreshings.'' 



CHAPTER VII. 
INCREASING IN THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD 

"Increasing in the knowledge of God." Col. 1-10. 

The apostle had just' prayed for the Colossians that 
they might be "filled with the knowledge of His will in 
all wisdom and spiritual understanding; and that they 
might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being 
fruitful unto every good Work" and further still, that they 
might continue on "increasing in the knowledge of God." 
God has not fenced us in, nor cooped us up, nor put a 
roof over us. If there be restrictions on us to a sane 
enlargement in the Divine life they do not come from 
Him. "It is to the enlarged life that God calls us." 
Over the whole living creation is written legibly, for all 
who can read, "Be ye enlarged!" To every seed the 
Divine Master says, "Be ye enlarged" — become a flower 
or a tree. To every rivulet He says, "Be enlarged" — 
become a river, and never rest until you have rejoined the 
sea. To every babe He says, "Be enlarged" — become a 
man or woman. To every spiritual babe He says, "At- 
tain unto the full-grown stature of a man in Christ" and 
then go on. "increasing in the knowledge of God." Men 

59 



60 Progress After Entire Sanctification 

hear this heavenly call and yield partial obedience to it. 
"They enlarge their eyes by means of telescope and mi- 
croscope, their estate by means of commerce, their minds 
by means of science. The only thing they resolutely re- 
fuse to do is to enlarge their souls. But what is all other 
enlargement if this supreme thing be ignored ?" 

— F. C. Spurr. 

"A soul may be holy without being established in holi- 
ness. There is childhood in (entire) sanctification. He 
who ceases to grow in holiness, ceases to enjoy heart pur- 
ity. Purity of heart is a stepping stone to religious de- 
velopment. Nearly the whole of growth is beyond heart 
purity, as growth in grace belongs preeminently to the 
sanctified state. All obstructions to growth being re- 
moved, there is no reason why the pure in heart should 
not make more rapid progress than when in a lower 
state of grace. 

Unless the soul pants for more of God, more of that 
fulness of which it has been made partaker, in being 
made pure ; unless faith seeks and secures enlargement, 
and love increase in intensity, the grace already given 
will not be retained, but there will be absolute loss. We 
shall have missed connection, and immediately retro- 
grade on the downward plane until we have passed the 
point of beginning. Let us, then, not only, "stand fast 
in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free," but 
"add to our faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; and 



Progress After Entire Sanctification 61 

to knowledge temperance ; and to temperance patience ; 
and to patience godliness; and to godliness brotherly 
kindness ; and to brotherly kindness charity. For if these 
things be in you and abound, they make you that ye shall 
neither be barren (idle margin) nor unfruitful in the 
knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ." — Wm. McDonald. 

Dr. Sheridan Baker, whose writings more specially 
emphasize progress after entire sanctification than per- 
haps any other writer on the subject, said: 

"Contentment with present attainments in grace, ana 
a feeling of security in their possession, have been the 
occasion of some of the sacred characters, and many of 
the pious of all ages, spotting themselves by some sad 
missteps in the evening of life, and before they left the 
world. Hence the only safe course for any Christian, 
however young or old, is to leave his conversion, his 
sanctification, his past experiences, his former victories 
and triumphs, and press to new revelations of grace and 
higher altitudes in the life of faith. And surely this is 
the Divine order. God commands sinners to repent and 
believe; He commands justified believers to cleanse them- 
selves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit ; He com- 
mands purified Christians to follow on to know the Lord, 
to forget the things behind, and press forward. He 
would have all continually and earnestly seeking the 
riches of grace, not pardon or purity, or what has already 
been reached, but what has not yet been reached, more of 



62 Progress After Entire Sanctification 

love, of light, of power, of God. And He would have 
the farthest advanced in spiritual life seek as earnestly 
the ideals which He has placed before them, as He would 
have sinners seek pardon and adoption, or the ideals held 
up to them. This is a fact fearfully overlooked by many 
Christians, even those who are supposed to have a deep 
insight into Divine things. Hence the enfeebled forms 
of holiness to be met with wherever the doctrine is taught 
and the experience professed. 

Reader, have you ever seriously thought over this mat- 
ter? Have you been impressed that your obligation to 
seek holiness, or having sought it, that your obligation 
to advance in it, is as imperative as the sinner's obliga- 
tion to commence a Christian life? Spirit of God, stir 
the reader and writer. Amen." 

"The Scriptures do not teach any degrees of cleans- 
ing the heart from original sin; in every passage where 
this work is referred to, it is spoken of as a complete, 
full, entire work, without degrees or gradualism. But 
the filling of the purified soul with certainty, light, love, 
unction, energy and all the positive forms of grace, is 
characterized by the terms, 'growth/ 'increase/ 'built 
up/ 'abound/ 'enlarge/ and 'more and more/ As when 
a farmer clears his land, the removal of stones and stumps 
and all obstructions to culture is the negative work and 
can be so perfectly finished that he would never find 
another rock or old root in the field. But the positive 



Progress After Entire Sanctification 63 

side of deepening the soil, fertilizing it, irrigating it, 
rendering it more productive, CAN BE INCREASED 
'MORE AND MORE' without special limit. So it is 
with the work of grace in the soul." — Watson. 

"Many, alas! only stand on the shore 
And gaze on the Ocean so wide; 

They never have ventured its depths to explore 
Or to launch on its fathomless tide. 

Let us launch out on this ocean so broad 
Where the floods of salvation overflow, 

Oh, let us be lost in the mercy of God 
Till the depths of His fulness we know." 

— A. B. Simpson. 

Andrew Murray, in his book, "The Full Blessing of 
Pentecost," asks : "Can the full blessing of Pentecost 
be still further increased? Can anything that is full 
become still fuller ? Yes, undoubtedly. It can become so 
full that it always overflows. This is especially the char- 
acteristic and law of the blessing of Pentecost. It is the 
distinction betwixt full and overflowing. A vessel may 
be full and yet have nothing over for others. When it 
continues full and yet has something over for others, 
there must be in it an over-brimming, over-flowing sup- 
ply. This is what our Lord promised to His believing 
disciples. At the outset, faith in Him gives them the 
blessing that they shall never thirst. But as they ad- 



64 Progress After Entire Sanctification 

vance and become stronger in faith, it makes them a 
fountain of water out of which streams flow to others. 
The Spirit who at first only fills us will overflow out of 
us to souls around us. It is with the rivers of living 
water as with many a fountain on earth. When we begin 
to open them the stream is weak. The more the water is 
used, the more deeply the source is opened up, the more 
strongly does the water flow." 



CHAPTER VIII. 

PERPETUATION OF ENTIRE CONSECRATION 

"O God, I am glad Thou couldst trust me enough to take 
me at my word. I did not know that this was included in 
my consecration, but I am so glad Thou couldst trust me 
to endure it all" [i. e. imprisonment for loyalty to sancti- 
fication.] Mme. Guyon. 

"Yield yourselves to God." Paul. 

These four simple words from Paul express the es- 
sence of consecration, whether in order to the obtain- 
ment, or maintainment and progression in the sanctified 
life. They contain depths little dreamed of when con- 
secrating for holiness. The seeker is told to consecrate 
"all he knows" and "all he does not know" and he does 
so as far as he has light. The future will reveal what 
he did not know far exceeds what he knew at the time 
of his entire consecration. It is well God has ordained 
that the sincere and willing mind is acceptable to Him in 
this ; else, many, on seeing what the future involved would 
draw back. As we are able to bear light is God's grac- 
ious method of dealing with us. Had the writer seen, 
when seeking to be sanctified wholly, what has since de- 

65 



66 Progress After Entire Sanctification 

veloped — the surrender of comfortable position, sep- 
aration from loved ones, friends, and, ultimately, wife 
and family, he fears with the grace he then had, the reve- 
lation would have proved too much. 

We fear some advocates of holiness are too exacting 
at this point — not that everything essential should not 
be surrendered, but when it comes to the worker sup- 
posing tests for the seeker as, "What if God called to 
Africa? or if He required this, that, or the other, would 
you do it?" And all manner of "ifs" which bewilder the 
perplexed soul and are not relevant. This is to assume 
prerogatives which belong to the Spirit who guides into 
all truth as we are able to bear it. Too much light blinds 
and bewilders. We should never burden the soul seeking 
holiness with conditions which belong to after develop- 
ment. Because God leads an individual into sanctifica- 
tion a certain way is no evidence He will lead all that 
same way. One, having light may have to come out 
of his lodge, in order to receive sanctification ; another 
is as truly sanctified, but does not have to yield this until 
later when God calls his attention to the incompatibility 
of such alliances with a profession of holiness. So it is 
in perpetuating the once for all consecration made in 
order to the obtainment of sanctification. All are not 
led through the same route. Well did a lady express it 
in our hearing, "When I was sanctified I did not know 
what consecration meant" (i.e. the perpetuation of en- 
tire consecration). 



Progress After Entire Sanctification 67 

The complete once for all consecration, which in- 
cluded willingness to walk in all subsequent light, brought 
the soul into a state where all the blinds of the soul's 
windows were thrown wide open — to the place where the 
full light of God's will shines in undimmed. Now, the 
soul, to retain God's favor, and progress, must walk in 
the light God reveals subsequently and continuously. 
"Whatever He saith" must now be done. The condition 
laid down by John, "If we walk in the light as He is in 
the light we have fellowship one with another, and the 
blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin," 
in order to obtaining, does not cease when perfect love 
is experienced. There will now commence revelations 
of things in the past life which need adjustment; and 
things to which we must die daily. Refusal to yield to 
God in these past and present requirements is the source 
of condemnation to many professors of sanctification. 
There is no condemnation to those who are in Christ 
Jesus is only a half truth; its complement is overlooked, 
"Who walk after the Spirit." As many as are led by 
the Spirit they are the sons of God. This is the con- 
demnation that light is come (i.e. the revelation of God's 
will) and men loved darkness (their own wills), rather 
than light. The spirit of yieldedness to these God given 
requirements, of obedience to particular revelations of 
His will subsequent to sanctification leads the soul into 
a "larger place" and ever increasing manifestations of 
His love and favor. 



68 Progress After Entire Sanctification 

Prof. Thomas C. Upham writing on the perpetuation 
of consecration after perfect love said : 

"It is a universal law, unalterable as God, and lasting 
as eternity, that no created being can be truly holy, use- 
ful or happy, who is knowingly and deliberately out of 
the line of Divine co-operation even for a moment. Ac- 
cordingly we are to consider every movement as con- 
secrated to God. It is true that, in order to the full and 
assured life of God in the soul, there must be the general 
act of consecration, which is understood to relate to 
man's whole nature, and to cover the whole ground of 
time and eternity. And we may say further, that it is 
proper to recall distinctly to the mind, and to repeat at 
suitable times, the general act of consecration; but it 
does not appear to be necessary, in the strict sense of 
the term, or in any other sense than that of repeating 
it, to renew it, unless it has been, at some period, really 
withdrawn. But while the general act remains good and 
diffuses its consecrative influence over the whole course 
of our being, as the events or occasions of such particu- 
lar consecrations may successively arise; and in the re- 
mark, as we now wish it to be understood, we do not 
mean those events which, while they are distinct, are 
peculiarly marked and important ; but all events of what- 
ever character! In other words, although we may have 
consecrated ourselves to God in a general way, and by 
a universal act of consecration, in all respects, and for 



Progress After Entire Sanctification 69 

all time, we must still consecrate ourselves to Him in 
each separate duty and trial which His providence im- 
poses, and moment by moment. The present moment, 
therefore, is, in a special sense, the important moment 
— the Divine moment — the moment which we cannot 
safely pass without having the Divine blessing upon it." 

Bishop Foster, author of Christian Purity gives a para- 
graph on "consecutive, or rather perpetual consecration" 
which is to the point : 

"This, to some, may seem to be included in the resolute 
resistance of every approach of sin. However this may 
be, it does not do away with the need of the remark we 
wish to make under this head. Entire consecration, as 
a means to the attainment of sanctification, has been ex- 
plained in another connection ; what we wish now to say 
is that it is a means and an indispensable one, of its pre- 
servation. It is so vital that the state cannot exist a 
moment in its absence. Hence, let it be remembered that 
the consecration which precedes this state is likewise to 
continue in the same degree after it is gained, for its 
perpetuation. It is a constant, uninterrupted, and undy- 
ing consecration, a point carried on into an endless line." 

Psychologists tell us of the sub-conscious field — i.e. 
that we know, or have stored away in that field, thou- 
sands of facts which we do not know that we know — i.e. 
they are not always present in consciousness, but remain 
hidden away in the sub-conscious field waiting for some 



yo Progress After Entire Sanctification 

circumstance to call forth said facts into consciousness. 
And it takes some special event to call said facts forth. 
This is illustrated by that familiar expression: "That 
(what you say) calls to my mind something which hap- 
pened years ago." It requires frequently, circumstances, 
events, or some word in conversation, in sermon, prayer, 
or testimony, to jostle some of the knowledge, stored 
away in memory, into consciousness ; and if not called 
forth thus, must ever remain in oblivion. No man can 
possibly know when consecrating himself to God what 
subsequent revelations and requirements will be imposed 
on him. This fact makes our consecration blameless and 
acceptable to God when in reality there may be many 
wrong things in the past life unadjusted, yet not present 
in consciousness, when consecration is made. There were 
unknown things which required restitution when the 
writer was sanctified, which subsequent circumstances 
have brought to his mind and as fast as memory, aided 
by such circumstances and unaided too, by its own 
strength and power, has been able to recall trespasses 
committed in youth they have been adjusted. Demur- 
ring, when light comes here, brings condemnation. There 
may be yet in the sub-conscious field things which sub- 
sequent events will bring to light which will need ad- 
justment; but for the present he is blameless, "The will- 
ing mind is acceptable to God according to that a man 
hath;" whether it be ability to do, or whether light is 



Progress After Entire Sanctification yi 

needed concerning what to do. Evan Roberts taught 
the people in Wales, "Every known wrong to our fel- 
lowmen must be made right." God does not condemn 
for the "unknown." 

A brother who professed holiness, had failed in busi- 
ness (previous to his sanctification), and by transfer- 
ring his property to his wife's name saved his home and 
other property. The law excused his debts; they were 
out of date. Subsequently it was revealed to him by a 
higher law, though the law of the land excused him, his 
conscience was not "void of offence towards God and 
man ;" that an honest debt is never out of date with an 
honest man, law or no law; and that to retain the ex- 
perience of holiness he must promise his creditors as fast 
as God enabled him to repay every dollar. Thus after 
sanctification the Spirit explores our past life, bores 
down, and brings to light the hidden things for adjust- 
ment; He also brings us face to face with things which 
require perpetual devotement to God. Here the principle 
of obedience to God in unknown things, consented to 
when consecrating for entire sanctification, is tested in 
the minute details of life. It is at this point many who 
have been truly and gloriously sanctified have failed. They 
were willing to say "yes" in order to receiving the joy- 
ous experience of sanctification, but have said "no" as 
God has shown them the cost of the perpetuation of that 
consecration. 



72 Progress After Entire Sanctification 

Shall we turn back? To what? "If any man draw 
back my soul shall have no pleasure in him." It is of 
little avail to start out well and stop. "He that endureth 
to the end shall be saved." "No man having put his hand 
to the plow and looking back is fit for the kingdom of 
God." 

I have made my choice forever, 
I will walk with Christ my Lord; 

Naught from Him my soul can sever, 
While I'm trusting in His Word; 
I the lonely way have taken, 
Rough and toilsome tho' it be, 

And although despised, forsaken, 
"Jesus, I'll go through with thee." 

Tho' the garden lies before me, 
And the scornful judgment hall, 

Tho' the gloom of deepest midnight, 
Settles round me like a pall; 

Darkness can affright me never, 
From thy presence shadows flee, 

And if thou wilt guide me ever, 
"Jesus, I'll go through with thee." 

Tho' the earth may rock and tremble, 
Tho' the sun may hide its face, 

Tho' my foes be strong and ruthless, 
Still I dare to trust thy grace; 

Tho' the cross my path o'ershadow, 
Thou didst bear it once for me, 

And whate'er the pain or peril, 
"Jesus, I'll go thro' with thee." 



CHAPTER IX. 

PERPETUATION OF CONSECRATION 
AND THE WILL 

"If any man willeth to do His will." John 7-17. R. V. 

"Consecration is the placing our all at Jesus' feet, plac- 
ing our all on the altar for time and eternity. It is the 
laying of our will down beside the Master's will, once 
for all and no longer having our way, but His way in all 
things. Consecration, then is a complete act, an act per- 
formed once for all, embracing what we know and what 
we do not know, and need never be repeated unless some- 
thing is taken off the altar. Having now made the conse- 
cration and thus agreed to always, under every circum- 
stance, will the will of God, the consecrated life is just 
begun. In living this life we cannot now go away and 
leave that consecration upon the altar and have no more 
to do with it. The consecrated life will not live itself 
without our aid, neither will the Master live it for us 
independent of us. While consecration is a completed 
act performed once for all, it is also the beginning of a 
life which is to be maintained in ever increasing fulness. 
While in consecration we laid our will down beside our 

73 



74 Progress After Entire Sanctification 

Master's will, this did not destroy our will, neither did it 
take our lives away from being directed by our wills; 
it simply gave the Master charge of the will to direct the 
life through it, we having agreed to constantly will 
the will of God. Thus we see that the consecrated life 
calls for the constant exercise of the will in the keeping 
of our part of the agreement. No matter how thoroughly 
consecrated a person may be he still lives out that which 
he wills. The hand, the foot, the tongue move according 
as they are directed by the will of the person. So with all 
the acts of the life. Sanctified persons are able to do the 
will of God when they will that will, but it will not be 
done unless they exercise their oivn will in each case. 
Sanctification does not make machines out of us, but still 
leaves us as responsible, volitional beings. TOO MANY 
SEEM TO FORGET THIS AND ACT LIKE THEY 
THOUGHT NOW THAT THEY ARE SANCTI- 
FIED THE LIFE WILL LIVE ITSELF; and how 
disappointing has been their experience and their ex- 
ample. We fear many are making this mistake and, like 
the prisoners of old who had dead bodies bound to them 
and were compelled to carry them around with them, 
these are carrying about with them a dead experience. 

How then is the consecrated life to be lived? Having 
begun the life at the same time the consecration was com- 
pleted, the "old man" is now crucified and the Holy 
Spirit has taken possession of the life. But as time 



Progress After Entire Sanctification 75 

moves on, each day and each hour there are new ques- 
tions to decide and acts to be performed. The Holy- 
Spirit, knowing the will of God, concerning each of these 
things, reveals that will to us, but He will not perform 
the act or decide the question for us — that is, He will 
not do the part that is to be done by our will. Never 
will the act be performed until we will its performance. 
Though we are sanctified the Holy Spirit will not force 
us contrary to our will. But at the time of our consecra- 
tion we agreed to will the will of God in all things, and 
now that the Holy Spirit has revealed this (new require- 
ment) thing to be the will of God, if we stay consecrated 
we at once (accept it), will its accomplishment. Having 
thus acted in accordance with our consecration, the 
Spirit, who dwells in us, sees to it that we are able to 
perform this will of God which we have willed. Thus, 
while in one case we willed the accomplishment of this 
in the moment of our consecration, in that we then laid 
our will beside the Master's will and agreed to always 
will His will, yet when the time came to accomplish this 
one act and it was made known to us, it called for a special 
act of our will relative to this special act and at this 
special time. Hence the consecrated life calls not simply 
for a complete act of consecration once for all but for 
a living out of that consecration now made by a daily 
and hourly exercise of the will in willing the will of God 
as the Spirit makes known that will to us, even as we 
agreed. 



y6 Progress After Entire Sanctification 

Friends, now that we are consecrated, let us continually 
do what we agreed to do when we made the consecration. 
This is the secret of successfully living the sanctified 
life." — Pres. Ellyson. 

"In the first gush of your sanctified joy you said, 'O 
Lord, I will do anything ! go anywhere, Lord ! to Africa, 
China, or Japan ! anywhere with Jesus.' And you meant 
it. The Holy Ghost put that in your heart. The Lord 
takes you at your word, and when the time comes for 
you to do things you promised to do it is not just play. 
You will find out, like the most of us find out, that in 
carrying out the principle of your heart you will have to 
suffer; and that very suffering simply demonstrates and 
proves to angels and devils that you are true. God 
knew you were true to begin with, but God wants you 
to know you are true. 

You go to the store to buy a spool of cotton. You 
put it in your pocket or your little satchel and carry it 
home. Now, you sit down and stitch, stitch, stitch. You 
take the spool of cotton and unfold and unroll the thread, 
and use it up into garments until the cotton is all gone. 
You get the clean heart and the baptism with the Holy 
Ghost, and you have got the spool of cotton. "Lord, 
I will obey. Here I am ; anything you say I will do." 
You are happy and it is all right. The Lord says "Very 
well." By and by the Lord begins to unroll you, and 
He begins to utilize all that spool of cotton, and He 



Progress After Entire Sanctification yj 

begins to have you do this and do that, until the thread 
of obedience that was in your heart has been stitched into 
a thousand garments" (Watson). But we must will 
the unwinding ! 

"A lady who had entered into this life hid with Christ, 
was confronted by a great prospective trial. Every emo- 
tion she had within her rose up in rebellion against it; 
and had she considered her emotions to be king, she 
would have been in utter despair. But she had learned 
this secret of the will, and knowing that, at the bottom, 
she herself did really choose the will of God for her 
portion, she did not pay the slightest attention to her 
emotions, but persisted in meeting every thought con- 
cerning the trial with the words, repeated over and over, 
"Thy will be done ! Thy will be done !" asserting in the 
face of all her rebelling feelings, that she did submit her 
will to God's will, that she chose to submit it, and that 
His will should be and was her delight ! The result was 
that in an incredibly short space of time every thought 
was brought into captivity, and she began to find even 
her every emotions rejoicing in the will of God." 

— ■#. W. Smith. 



CHAPTER X. 

PERPETUATION OF CONSECRATION, 
OBEDIENCE AND FAITH 

"If ye love me ye will keep my commandments." 

John 14:15. (Rev. Ver.) 

In order to advance there must be a continuous unfold- 
ing of the principle of obedience assented to in entire 
consecration : 

Some one illustrates this thus : "When a boy volun- 
teers to go into the navy, and gets a naval suit on, walks 
the deck, and is gay and jolly with his comrades, he has 
in his young heart the principle of loyalty to his govern- 
ment; but he knows no more of what that principle is 
going to involve than anything in the world. When he 
gets on the high seas, when sickness breaks out and he 
is in a foreign port, when he goes into a naval engage- 
ment and encounters storm and strife, and this extends 
over years, he finds that the principle of loyalty which 
he had in his heart must be unfolded day by day, month 
by month, and year by year. And as the principle of 
loyalty is applied on this point and on that it may involve 
a great deal of suffering." 

79 



8o Progress After Entire Sanctification 

Thus it is with the sanctified life, or as the same author 
has said in substance, "the development of the sanctified 
is like the unrolling of a spool of cotton." It is the 
proving true to God in the unrolling that counts ; here is 
where thousands of people who have entered the sancti- 
fied life have failed. As God has unfolded and unrolled 
His will to their conscience they have not paid the price 
of continuous and instant obedience. The entrance of 
the sanctified life is comparatively a small thing com- 
pared to the after obedience required. 

We met a brother at camp meeting who had previously 
been sanctified. When consecrating for sanctification he 
did not then have the light God would require him to 
leave his lodge. Later the light came that he should 
"come out from among and be separate'* from, worldly 
alliances. He had gone too far to turn back, so he 
yielded to God's will and came out. The next year found 
him again at the much-loved camp-meeting, only to learn 
of new light. While preaching on tithing we remarked 
a man's consecration for sanctification was not complete 
which did not include the tithe ; that stinginess was no 
part of holiness ; and that if any were sanctified without 
bringing in "all the tithes," from that morning they 
would feel condemned for disobedience to new light. 
This brother, though a manufacturer, and a man of son*© 
means, met the issue and resolved to walk in the light 
at any cost. The Lord blessed and advanced him there. 



Progress After Entire Sanctification 81 

Had he rebelled and refused at this point darkness would 
have come to his soul. We suppose, if he continues to 
attend the camp-meeting, from year to year God will 
through the word flash new light on his pathway. 

Let the professor of holiness who reads these lines 
beware of robbing God in tithes and offerings. A pro- 
fessor of sanctification in the West owned one of the 
finest stock-farms in his state. He tithed his income. 
One day he and his wife looked into the tithe box with 
covetous eyes : it had accumulated to near a hundred 
dollars ; they said : "It is too much ; we cannot afford 
to give so much," and forgetting the Lord God who 
giveth power to get wealth, took the money to pay a bill. 
They were soon judged for robbing God. Cholera and 
sickness carried their stock off ; they lost in a short while 
thereafter, stock, fine farm, and everything and were 
reduced to direst poverty. He told us he traced his 
calamity directly to his refusal to keep up his consecra- 
tion. 

"In ten thousand forms, in an innumerable number of 
cases the principle of obedience" must be unfolded day 
by day and applied to this circumstance or that occasion. 

"You must remember that the principle of obedience 
is one thing, — that lies in the heart, — but the application 
of that principle is something else. There is no suffering 
in the principle of obedience. The element of loyalty 
lies in the heart, and there is no suffering in that. But 



82 Progress After Entire Sanctification 

when you take that principle of loyalty, of obedience in 
the heart, and come to apply it in the outward life, it 
necessarily involves a great deal of suffering." 

A young lady who enjoyed the sanctified life had her 
attention called to the unscripturalness of wearing 
jewelry. When seeking holiness she was not told it was 
necessary to yield such small things. We told her, "the 
Master hath not need of this" (her ring) ; that what- 
ever she did she must do all to the glory of God; that 
the adornment of women, especially sanctified ones, 
should not consist in the "wearing of gold and costly 
array." God sealed the truth on her heart and whilst she 
had not known, when seeking holiness, God would re- 
quire the surrender of her ring, yet now she saw to con- 
tinue in the holy life she must walk in this new light. 
She did so and was made radiantly happy in the thought 
"all she knew and all she did not know" belonged to 
her king. Thus, consecration and obedience in the 
broader meaning of the terms include the unrevealed 
revelations of God's will — to which as they are known 
we must promptly surrender — keep up a perpetual de- 
votement of all to God. Not only have the principle of 
obedience but apply it in every case. 

Progress in any state of grace will be according to the 
soul's implicit obedience to all of God's revealed will. 
This same condition was imposed on the holy pair in their 
primitive state of holiness and innocence. Even in that 



Progress After Entire Sanctification 83 

state improvement and development were to be gained 
by exercise. Holiness implies the most intense activity, 
mental and spiritual, of which we are capable. God gave 
them a prohibitive command, obedience to which would 
have brought lasting blessing to them and their posterity : 
"But of the tree of knowledge of good and evil thou 
shalt not eat of it, for in the day that thou eatest thereof 
thou shalt surely die" — i.e. : they should lose their spir- 
itual life — fellowship with God — and be banished from 
the fellowship of His presence. Holiness, being the 
restoration of man to that state and likeness of God 
which was lost in the fall, and reinstating him into es- 
sentially the same state of purity Adam enjoyed before 
the fall — (of course Adam had advantage over holy men 
now in that his knowledge was intuitive and that he did 
not inherit the same bodily infirmities as men now do 
because of hereditary taint) — as disobedience then for- 
feited that gracious state and broke off the life man had 
in God, so now the prime condition God lays down by 
which the holy life is maintained, and development therein 
accelerated, is, Obedience! 

Soon after the writer entered the sanctified life, and 
before he became established therein, he remarked to a 
friend, who was advanced in the deep things of God, that 
he did not have the same delightful manifestations ex- 
perienced in the first days of his sanctified life. (Not 
that we may expect to be on the mountain top and always 



84 Progress After Entire Sanctification 

ecstatic; in this case there was a withdrawal of the 
Divine presence because of disobedience.) We shall 
never forget how he suddenly turned on us and with 
anointed eye, looked, it seemed, through our very soul, 
and said, "Beloved, I have noticed Christ's manifesta- 
tions to the heart are sharply conditioned on obedience ;" 
and then, with convicting power, quoted, "He that hath 
my commandments and obeyeth them, he it is that loveth 
me and he that loveth me (in this sense that he keeps 
my commandments) shall be loved of my Father and I 
will love him and will manifest myself to him." 

George Miiller, of unprecedented faith, soon learned 
the relation of implicit and instant obedience to answers 
to prayer. He wrote in substance : "For it will not do, it 
is not possible, to live in the practice of any known sin 
and at the same time by prayer, draw from heaven sup- 
plies, temporal and spiritual, for the life that now is." 
To the willing and obedient is promised the good of the 
land, 

"Trust and obey, for there's no other way 
To be happy in Jesus, 

But to trust and obe} r ." 

Some years ago we met in one of our Western states 
a farmer who had had a marvelous conversion and was 
subsequently, definitely, and gloriously sanctified wholly. 
He would testify with great grace and power. His heart 
was aflame with holy love and zeal for Christ. One day 



Progress After Entire Sanctification 85 

in a testimony service we noticed "Ichabod" writtten 
over his usually bright features. "The glory had de- 
parted." A cloud had come over his soul which was 
vividly registered on his features — "The great soul's ap- 
parent seat." He could no longer tell of complete vic- 
tory, nor give the old time fiery, electrifying exhortation. 
He confessed something was wrong and asked us the 
probable cause. We remarked possibly God had shown 
him something in his life which did not measure up to 
Bible requirement and he had not obeyed; we further 
suggested possibly he was not bringing all God's tithes 
in from his big three hundred acre farm ! This proved 
to be the cause. The light had come. God showed him 
His requirement. He had disobeyed, refused to walk 
in the light. He thought he knew better how much he 
should give than the Evangelist who had shown, "The 
tithe is holy to the Lord." His disobedience brought a 
withdrawal of the Divine presence — condemnation. 
"Whoso turns his ear away (disobedience, refusing light) 
from the hearing of the law, his prayer (and profession), 
is an abomination to the Lord." We rejoice to write 
this brother after a struggle obeyed this new light which 
had not come to him when consecrating for sanctification, 
and was again given his usual liberty and joy in the 
Lord. 

Dearly beloved, brother and sister, in the sanctified life, 
would you know why you have made so little progress in 



86 Progress After Entire Sanctification 

the "Highway of Holiness?" You have forgotten the 
one thing needful — Obedience! Obedience! Not merely 
as a means of obtainment but also as a means of advance- 
ment. As Andrew Murray says in substance, "You have 
desired to be happy, holy, useful, and gain heaven, but 
have forgotten these are found in obedience. Our lack 
of understanding that obedience is the one thing needful 
has caused us to go mourning many a day." "If ye 
love me ye will obey my commandments." Jesus lays 
down the condition of continual abiding and advance- 
ment: "If ye keep my commandments ye shall abide in 
my love even as I have kept my Father's commandments 
and abide in His love." "Hereby we do know that we 
are knowing Him if we are obeying His commandments. 
He that saith I know Him and obeys not His command- 
ments is a liar and the truth is not in him." 

Disobedience Hinders Power in Service 

Some one says, "If the professing Christians of the 
world would stop fencing and parleying with God's 
known will in their lives and yield obedience thereto, a 
mighty tidal wave of salvation would, as a result, come 
sweeping over the land." Thus, not only does disobedi- 
ence militate against the soul's growth in grace, but also 
against power for service. Paul wrote to Timothy: 
"Take heed unto thyself and unto the doctrine (i.e. obey 
it) ; continue in them ; for in doing this thou shalt both 



Progress After Entire Sanctification 87 

save thyself, and them that hear thee." The inference 
clearly is, if he should disobey, souls, who otherwise would 
have been saved, would be lost. The recent Welsh re- 
vival teaches the church if her members will put every- 
thing away known to be wrong in their lives and make 
every known wrong to their fellowmen right, imme- 
diately God's Spirit, who is present, will commence work- 
ing through the church on the unsaved. Evan Roberts, 
the chief human instrument in that great revival in 
which from eighty (80,000) to one hundred thousand 
(100,000) souls were saved, climaxes his message to the 
churches of the world with the significant words : 
"Obedience! Obedience! Obedience!" God's lamenta- 
tion has ever been concerning His recreant church : "O 
that thou hadst hearkened unto my commandments ! then 
hadst thy peace been as a river and thy righteousness as 
the waves of the sea. Thy seed (spiritual offspring) also 
had been as the sand." He graciously promises, "I am 
the Lord thy God which teacheth thee to profit, which 
leadeth thee by the way that thou shouldst go." Beloved 
reader, let us make a covenant of obedience with Him, 
resolving through the aid of His grace alone to die rather 
than disobey Him in the minutest revelation of His will. 
And let us remember there is a continuity of condition 
upon which we are to receive the full life of God in 
the soul and advance therein : "For God hath given the 
Holy Ghost to those who obey Him." i.e. : He hath 



88 Progress After Entire Sanctification 

given, now gives, and continues to give, the Holy Ghost 
(either as Regenerator, Sanctifier, Anointer, and Leader) 
to those who have obeyed Him, now obey Him, and 
continue to Obey Him ! 

Only as we continually obey and keep up the perpetual 
consecration are we prepared to have faith. The familiar 
stanza, "Trust and obey," should be reversed. "Obey 
and trust." There can be no trust, no faith, unless 
obedience precedes it. 

"The life of holiness is eminently a life of faith. We 
have before said it is attained by faith, we now say it 
cannot continue a moment without faith; faith is its 
very root and sap. The same faith which at first intro- 
duced the principle, preserves it. But we are not there- 
fore to suppose the soul must always be in painful en- 
deavor. Faith in the heart of a Christian operates when 
he does not think of it, produces fruit without his con- 
sciousness. It is obvious, that holiness can only coexist 
with faith. Would you retain the state? Maintain the 
vital principle: watch against every tincture of unbelief, 
every approach of infidelity; let the life you live be by 
the faith of the Son of God. 

We have feared some have fallen into delusion on the 
subject of faith. They seem to have the idea that it is 
a kind of magic cure or exterminator of the virus of sin, 
by which they are enabled to retain entire canctification 
along with occasional evil practices. Faith is not some- 



Progress After Entire Sanctification 89 

thing which one having learned how to use, he is enabled 
to sin, and get rid of his sin dexterously — enabled to re- 
nounce or soil, and then restore, sanctity at will. Rather, 
it is that mysterious hand by which the holy soul clings 
to God amid all temptation, and so is kept from sin." 

— Bishop Foster. 



CHAPTER XL 
OBSTACLES TO PROGRESS 

"To him that overcometh." 

"We may increase holy emotions and desires by re- 
moving obstacles to their exercise. The speed of a vessel 
or a car depends not only on the propelling power, but 
also on the number and greatness of the obstacles. The 
sanctified person is continually acquiring knowledge in 
relation to the object of his perfected love, and also in 
relation to his physical and intellectual infirmities, the 
nature of temptations, and the arts of the adversary. 
These infirmities, temptations and evil arts are obstacles 
to his progress in holiness. But every day's experience, 
under the instruction and guidance of the Spirit, teaches 
their nature and diminishes their power. He learns 
where his weakness is and better how to counteract it. 
He knows the artifices of the adversary, the insidious 
manner of his approaches, and the way in which he can 
be defeated. Hence serious obstacles, which before per- 
plexed his progress, are removed." — T. C. Upham, D. D. 

There are obstacles many to the soul's growth in holi- 
ness. We would not magnify them but with Caleb and 

91 



92 Progress After Entire Sanctification 

Joshua, say, "We be well able to overcome them." If 
the Lord delight in us then shall we be able to triumph 
over every foe — and make every obstacle a stepping stone 
to higher heights of advancement. 

When William the Conqueror came over from Nor- 
mandy to conquor England, in landing from his vessel, 
he slipped and fell on the beach. His men cried out, 
"This is an ill omen of defeat." "Nay," was the prompt 
reply, as he arose with a handful of sand in each hand, 
"Thus do I seize the land." And so may we turn every 
emblem of defeat, and every obstruction into a symbol 
of victory, as the oyster converts the annoying sand into 
pearl. 

Some of the obstacles which impede the holy soul's 
progress in the Divine life may be mentioned. 

Ignorance : "My people are destroyed because of lack 
of knowledge." 

"Evangelical holiness is perfect love. Love is based 
in part on knowledge. We can never love one whom 
we know not; and as our knowledge extends we have 
a wider basis for this principle. Every new manifesta- 
tion of God's character, attributes and providences will 
furnish new occasions for accessions of love. One per- 
fected in love, a holy person, may increase in holiness in 
proportion with his increase in knowledge. Little claim 
has any one to be holy, who is willing to be ignorant. 
We do not refer to the knowledge of natural things, 



Progress After Entire Sanctification 93 

which often perplexes rather than promotes inward life ; 
but to religous knowledge ! — to everything which throws 
light upon the character, providences and will of God. 
. . . Holiness is a great study ; only a faithful student 
will understand it. God hath given us all things that 
pertain to life and godliness," through the knowledge 
of Him that called us to glory and virtue. "Add to your 
faith virtue and to virtue knowledge." 

— Thomas C. Upham, D. D. 

Paul prayed for the Colossian Christians that they 
"might be filled with the knowledge of His will in all 
spiritual wisdom and understanding." "When we speak 
of knowledge we do not mean "classical lore" nor knowl- 
edge of the sciences ; though, if in the providence of God 
we may be so circumstanced as to gain knowledge of 
these, they may, under the blessing of the Almighty, be 
tributary to spiritual knowledge." "Above all thy getting 
get knowledge," but remember the true and most im- 
portant knowledge is spiritual. "The unction we have 
from Him teaches us all things." Not Hebrew, Greek, 
or Latin, nor mathematics, but all things that pertain to 
life and godliness, which is far more important. "If one 
had his choice of acquiring knowledge of the poems of 
Homer or the Psalms of David, he had better choose the 
latter. The Epistles of Paul should be given preference 
to the writings of Shakespeare." Thank God, we may 
be saved without vast knowledge. And we may advance 



94 Progress After Entire Sanctification 

in the holy life without A. M., B. A., Ph. D., or D. D. de- 
grees, but we cannot make progress without a broad 
knowledge of the word of God. When the inspired writer 
wrote, "God's people are destroyed for lack of knowl- 
edge," he meant knowledge of God's will as revealed in 
His word. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly." 
"True faith produces an immediate rest of soul from 
all carefulness and anxiety and settles it in great peace. 
This state of freedom from carefulness and anxiety will 
be as broad as the intelligence of him who exercises faith. 
Ignorance of the promises, and of Christ's official rela- 
tions, and ignorance of what we may expect of Him, may 
prevent or break the soul's rest under certain circum- 
stances, or in certain emergencies. For example, sup- 
pose the soul to be ignorant of the declaration that all 
things work together for good to them that love God ;" 
or of this, "My grace is sufficient for thee," or of this, 
"I will never leave thee nor forsake thee;" or this, "As 
thy day so shall thy strength be." Then certain trials 
may throw the soul into a state of unrest and anxiety. 
I mention these merely as examples of how ignorance or 
a want of thoughtfulness may embarrass the spiritual life 
and break up the rest of a true believer, until he is in- 
formed or remembers what he has in the fulness of his 
blessed Saviour." — Pres. C. G. Finney. 



CHAPTER XII. 
SPIRITUAL FAILURE 

"Through inexperience and imperfect instruction, there 
may come spiritual failures to the fully saved soul, such 
as temporary disobedience (under stress of powerful and 
sudden temptation the soul may be taken off its guard 
and yield temporarily to the enemy and yet obey God in 
other things — a distinction should be made between sin 
of deliberate purpose and such yieldings), inadvertent 
yieldings to temptations, impulsive indulgences in wrong 
feelings, occasional lapses into sin. While full salvation 
saves from the sin principle, it does not save us from 
the power to sin or the liability to sin under subtle 
attacks of the adversary. When such spiritual acci- 
dents occur they are a great surprise and humiliation to 
the sanctified heart. The slightest yielding to temptation, 
the least indulgence of a feeling of impatience or selfish- 
ness or other unholy feelings, the smallest unseemly act, 
word, or manner after the heart has been cleansed, burns 
like a live coal upon the refined sensibilities of the pur- 
ified soul. 

95 



g6 Progress After Entire Sanctification 

There comes as a result of these spiritual lapses, a 
veiling of the Divine face, a sense of condemnation com- 
mingled with a sense of spiritual sorrow and holy re- 
morse. This bitter experience of failure is taken ad- 
vantage of by the enemy to induce the soul to repudiate 
its experience of full salvation, either insinuating that it 
was mistaken as to having attained it, or that it is im- 
possible, with its temperament, circumstances, and asso- 
ciations, to retain it. This peril has swept down many 
once fully sanctified souls. The anchor that can hold 
the soul in this fierce storm, is to know that such spiritual 
repulses do not forfeit the gracious state of cleansing 
from all sin unless they come from a precedent repudia- 
tion of its consecration and trust. . . . The soul 
must know, whenever such spiritual calamities come that 
an immediate confession to God, and a reassertion of its 
trust in the all-cleansing blood will prevent the forfeiture 
of its experience and bring an immediate renewal of the 
witness to full salvation. The fully sanctified soul does 
not forfeit the grace of purity by spiritual lapses that 
are not intentional but involuntary, providing the soul 
at once applies the antidote of confession and faith to the 
wound of the heart which the poisoned firey dart of the 
enemy has inflicted. ,, 

The method of grace for spiritual repair and preserva- 
tion in the state of full salvation is just the same as that 
for justification. A beloved brother minister, widely 



Progress After Entire Sanctification 97 

known as a writer, had entered full salvation, and was 
walking in it with comfort and victory. Exasperating 
disobedience of a daughter betrayed him into unbecoming 
feeling, hasty language and undue severity in her cor- 
rection. He told us about it; an awful darkness was 
upon his soul; his spiritual remorse was excruciating; 
he felt all was gone, his experience of full salvation, and 
his holy influence over his child and home. We told him 
it was not. If he would immediately confess to God, and 
to the daughter, his wrong, and would hold unwavering 
to his faith, he would find that the blood still cleansed. 
We left him. He thought at first he could not come to 
prayer meeting, but afterwards came. When the service 
was over the witness had reappeared to his soul ; he had 
been kept by the power of God unto full salvation, and 
had gone up into higher altitudes of purity and strength. 
Here is God's covenant, "If [by moral accident or inad- 
vertance] any man sin we have an advocate with the 
Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." When a believer, 
not of purpose, or determination but unintentionally sins, 
our High Priest at once takes up his case, stays the 
spiritual consequences of such a lapse, preserving him 
from the infection of unholy dispositions, until the Holy 
Spirit can call attention of the soul to the enormity of its 
failure and can point to the atonement provision for re- 
pairing it, — 'if we confess our sins, He is faithful and 
just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all 



98 Progress After Entire Sanctification 

unrighteousness.' Should the soul heed this language, 
confess and maintain its faith, it goes its way rejoicing, 
established, strengthened, advanced in the fulness of 
love." — S. A. Keen. 

Thank God all is not lost when the sanctified soul un- 
intentionally fails. God ever holds this encouraging 
language out to the failing one, "The steps of a good 
man are ordered by the Lord and though he fall he shall 
not be utterly cast down for the Lord upholdeth him 
(lifteth him up) with his hand." Hallelujah, He re- 
stores the soul ; for His name's sake He leads and guides. 

Another familiar, but sadly neglected condition of 
progress is laid down by the Apostle Peter : "Desire the 
sincere milk of the word that ye may grow thereby. In 
these days of multitudinous books and periodicals one 
needs set determination and fixed purpose of heart to 
make God's book 'the book ;' "else it will only have second- 
ary place, or be used merely as a text or reference book. 
Said a minister friend to the writer, "When I was at 
college the requirements of my course of study precluded 
the possibility of much Bible study. Consequently he 
graduated a preacher knowing little of the "Good News" 
he was to proclaim. Thus, by thousands, the fountain 
of living water is being forsaken. 

George Miiller, a man of vast learning as well as re- 
markable faith, said the beginning of his unprecedented 
life of faith was when he commenced reading the Bible 



Progress After Entire Sanctification 99 

as the sole standard of judgment in spiritual things ; the 
one thing he specially noticed was that his soul was caused 
to grow thereby as no other book had enabled him to 
grow. When Wesley became (homo unius libri), a man 
of one book, he became a man of power. 

Trials. Peter wrote to some who were sanctified of 
the "trial of their faith." In time of trial bewilderment 
comes from the wrong view point. God permits people 
whom we think should help us to act as thorns. Every- 
thing is God's will permissively, pesky folks, too. He 
is a wall of fire about us and nothing can enter that wall 
without His permission. It then becomes His will and 
we should embrace it as such, and praise Him for it, too. 
Paul said, "I overflow with joy in all our affliction." We 
should not pray for the removal of trials but for victory 
in them. They are God's chariots to take us further into 
Canaan. 

Obstacles are the chief conditions of progress : "The 
bird might think as air is the only thing that resists its 
flight, if it were not for the air it could fly better ; whereas, 
if it had no air it could not fly at all — would fall to the 
ground and be unable to fly." Let us not groan for de- 
liverance from obstacles but for grace to overcome them. 

"Obstacles ought to set us singing. The wind finds 
voice, not when rushing across the open sea, but when 
hindered by the outstretched arms of the pine trees, or 
broken by the fine strings of the Aeolian harp. Then it 
has songs of beauty and power. Set your freed soul 



IOO Progress After Entire Sanctification 

sweeping across the obstacles of life, through forests of 
pain, against even the tiny hindrances and frets that love 
uses, and it, too, will find its singing voice. ,, "Soft seats, 
easy tasks and pathways strewn with roses, take the 
temper out of character, and produce good for nothing 
lives. Difficulties impart their own splendid fiber to those 
who master them." 



CHAPTER XIII. 
PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS 

"Be holy in all manner of living." Peter 1-16. 

Bishop Foster said : "Christians often need to be ad- 
monished ; and not always the less so because of the great- 
ness of their attainments. Admitting, as we do, that no 
degree of religious progress precludes mental imperfec- 
tion and infirmity, even the most mature Christians may 
need counsel and advice; and whether they need it or 
not, they will in proportion to their humility and self 
distrust, thankfully receive it when given with good in- 
tent and in a proper spirit." 

The first temptation of the entirely sanctified is to 
spiritual pride — "to think more highly of himself than 
he ought" — to think he knows it all and that none can 
teach him. 

Teachableness 

"To imagine none can teach you but those who are 
themselves saved from sin, is a very grave and dangerous 
mistake. You have need to be taught by the weakest, 
by all men. "For God sendeth by whom he will send." 

101 



102 Progress After Entire Sanctification 

Do not therefore say to any who would advise or re- 
prove you, "You are blind; you cannot teach me. This 
is your wisdom, 'your carnal reason/ but calmly weigh 
the thing before God." 

Willingness to Admit Faults 

Let there be in you that lowly mind which was in 
Christ Jesus and be ye likewise clothed with humility. 
As one instance of this, be always ready to own any 
fault you have been in. If you have at any time thought, 
spoken or acted wrong, be not backward to acknowledge 
it. Never dream that this will hurt the cause of God; 
no it will further it. Be therefore open and frank when 
you are taxed with anything ; do not seek either to evade 
or disguise it ; but let it appear just as it is, and you will 
thereby not hinder but adorn the Gospel." — Wesley. 

"Why should you be any more backward in acknowl- 
edging your failings than in professing that you do not 
pretend to infallibility? St. Paul was perfect in the love 
which casts out fear, and therefore he boldly reproved 
the high priest; but when he had reproved him too 
sharply, he directly confesses his mistake, and set his 
seal to the importance of the duty in which he had been 
inadvertently wanting. "Then Paul said, I knew not, 
brethren, that he was the high priest; for it is written, 
Thou shalt not speak evil of the ruler of thy people." 
St. John was perfect in the courteous, humble love, which 



Progress After Entire Sanctification 103 

brings us down at the feet of all. His courtesy, his hu- 
mility, and the dazzling glory which beamed forth from 
a Divine messenger, whom he apprehended to be more 
than a creature, betrayed him into a fault contrary to that 
of St. Paul; but far from concealing it he openly con- 
fessed it and published his confession for the edification 
of all the churches : "When I had heard and seen," said 
he, "I fell down before the feet of the angel who showed 
me these things. Then said he unto me, 'See thou do it 
not, for I am thy fellow-servant.' " Christian perfection 
shines as much in the childlike simplicity with which the 
perfect readily acknowledge their faults, as it does in 
the manly steadiness zvith which they resist unto blood, 
striving against sin." — Rev. John Fletcher. 

Confession 

"The confession of sin during the whole course of the 
present life is exceedingly proper for various reasons; 
and first, because sin is an unspeakable evil. Those who 
have obtained the state of perfect love never can forget 
their former degradation and guilt; and in their present 
state of mind, they never can remember it without being, 
at each distinct retrospection deeply humbled and peni- 
tent. Indeed, as true confession consists much more in 
the state of the heart than in the expression of the lip, 
those who are earnestly seeking and practicing holiness 
may be said, in the highest sense of the terms, to be 



104 Progress After Entire Sanctification 

always acknov/ledging and lamenting their sin . . . 
whenever and wherever committed, whether by them- 
selves or others, at the present or in times past. 

Second. There is a propriety and a practical import- 
ance in the confession of sin, during the whole course of 
the present life; because our various infirmities, our 
defects of judgment, our frequent ignorance of the mo- 
tives and characters of our fellowmen, and the relative 
wrong acts and feelings which originate in these sources, 
from which no one, in the present period and history of 
the church, can reasonably expect to be free, require an 
atonement, as well as our wilful and voluntary transgres- 
sions. Such is not only our own belief, but we believe it 
is generally conceded by those who are likely to take 
an interest in these inquiries. All such infirmities call 
for the atonement of Christ. Anything needing the atone- 
ment must be confessed and renounced to receive the 
benefits of such atonement. 

It is in accordance with what has now been said, that 
Christians who are established in the interior life, when- 
ever they have fallen into such errors and infirmities, ex- 
perience no true peace of mind until they find a sense of 
forgiveness. For an error in judgment; for an ill-placed 
word when there was no evil designed or intention of 
saying what was wrong; for an action which was unde- 
signedly a mistaken one, either through undue remissness 
or undue haste; for any hasty uncharitable judgment 



Progress After Entire Sanctification 105 

uttered; for any unavoidable blindness and ignorance 
whatever, which are followed by evil or unhappy results ; 
they find no relief but in an immediate and believing 
application of the atoning blood. Now as such infirmities 
are frequent (observe), and as, indeed, they are un- 
avoidable so long as we come short of the intellectual 
and physical perfection of Adam, we shall have abundant 
occasion to confess our trespasses ; and it will ever be 
true that our sin in this sense of the term will ever be 
before us. 

It is proper to remark here that Mr. Wesley, while he 
maintained with great ability and earnestness, the doc- 
trine of Christian perfection, or of perfect love, did not 
hold to the doctrine of sinless perfection. That is to 
say, he maintained that it was both our duty and privilege 
to love God with all our heart and also that this state 
of mind had been actually, and in many cases realized. 
He maintained, nevertheless, that this state was consistent 
with those wrong judgments which are involuntary and 
unavoidable, and consequently with wrong acts and af- 
fections, that we are continually liable to transgress in 
the respects which have been mentioned, even while we 
are in the state of perfect love, and that the best of men 
may say from the heart : 

"Every moment, Lord, I need 
The merit of thy death." 

This view seems to be correct. And it is very desir- 



io6 Progress After Entire Sanctification 

able when we look at it in its practical results, as well 
as in its moral relations that it should be continually 
maintained, because it will constantly prompt us not 
only to seek perfection in love, but to seek perfection 
in manners, habits, health, words, knowledge, and all 
good judgment." — From Up ham's Interior Life. 

Moulting and Shedding 

Dr. Carradine, in an article on "Moulting and Shed- 
ding," shows how, in a sense, this process continues all 
through life: 

"We started the spiritual life by leaving off our actual 
sins. Later we got rid of the old man. 

Since then we cannot number the wrong sayings, un- 
wise methods, foolish notions, hasty conclusions, and 
improper ways of approaching and dealing with men 
we have dropped. No bird ever moulted as we have 
done. No tree ever outstripped us in the shedding busi- 
ness. . . . One thing we shed as a young preacher 
was a rattan. . . . After that we moulted a beaver 
hat. ... Then came the shedding of witty speeches. 

Time would fail to tell of the different things which 
are quietly dropped or vigorously flung off in the course 
of years from the boughs and branches of a healthy 
Christian life. They are not sins, but are unwise sayings 
and doings ; wrong conceptions of duty ; false doctrines ; 



Progress After Entire Sanctification 107 

mannerisms, improprieties, eccentricities, extravagances 
of speech and action; in a word, everything like fungus 
growth that needs to be cut off, or like the frosted leaf 
which ought to be shed quickly and blown utterly away. 

Peter had a time moulting what is known as the cere- 
monial law. There it hung like a bunch of fluttering dry 
leaves for months and years after Pentecost, requiring 
a sharp rebuke from Paul, and a vision from Heaven to 
knock the dry things off. 

What a relief it would be in many respects, what a 
help to the cause of God, and what an increased glory 
to Christianity, if a lot of silly dressing, and funny head- 
gear, of man imposed asceticisms and a certain nasal 
whangdoodle style of praying and preaching could at 
once and forever be gotten rid of. In other words shed 
or moulted. 

Truly that strong autumnal gale from heaven cannot 
blow too soon, which shall strip from us and bear away 
the needless, the superfluous, the unsightly, the burden- 
some, and the hurtful, and leave us open for a foliage 
and fruitage which shall be honored of God and blessed 
to the present and everlasting good of men." 

Mr. Wesley said, "God hardly gives His Spirit, even 
to those whom He has established in grace, if they do 
not pray for Him on all occasions, not only once but many 
times." 

As we progress in holiness there will be a commen- 



108 Progress After Entire Sanctification 

surate liberality — we will cease to content ourselves 
with giving tithes and offerings — we will do this, to be 
sure, but will learn we are stewards and not owners, 
and that all we possess is subservient to the Divine order. 
Stinginess and sanctification are not compatible ideas — 
they do not hang together — the stingy man is not a sanc- 
tified man. We should stand before God and say, with 
Miiller, as to the disposition of what Thou hast entrusted 
to me, "Command me Lord" all is Thine. 

John Wesley's example of liberality shames many of 
his sons. He preached, "Lay not up treasures upon 
earth," and a life of self-denial and economy for Jesus' 
sake, and practiced what he preached. When his salary 
was thirty-two pounds a year he lived on twenty-eight 
and gave the balance to the Lord. When his income was 
sixty pounds he still lived on twenty-eight and gave away 
the remaining thirty-two. When it reached ninety pounds 
he lived on the usual twenty-eight and gave away the 
sixty-two pounds. When it reached one hundred and 
twenty pounds he did not permit his living expenses to 
increase but still managed to live on the twenty-eight and 
gave the balance to God. Are we progressing in practical 
holiness according to this example ? 



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